


Et la lumière fut

by mademoiselle_poupee



Series: Lux Facta Est [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 3x05 AU, F/M, Future AU, Gen, Lady Sybil Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoiselle_poupee/pseuds/mademoiselle_poupee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They would raise hell but they would be our little hellions."</p><p>Tom and Sybil. Sybbie, Aoife and Saoirse. A series of one-shots revolving around the Bransons set before, during, and after the events of Lux Facta Est. [SYBIL LIVES AU] [3x05 AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. étoiles

**A/N:** As promised in the last chapter of Lux Facta Est, there is much, much more to this universe and I've finally got the chance to put pen to paper and write some of them. This work will be a series of one shots (in no chronological order) detailing missing moments, befores and afters of Lux Facta Est stopping before World War II although references will be made to it.

This OS was originally meant to be the Chapter Four of this work, the first one being a fluffy piece on little Sybbie and little George. Thing is, my cousins and I (quite spontaneously) ended up lying on deck chairs on the beach after dinner on Christmas Day and city kids that we are, brought out our inner romantics and watched the most beautiful star-studded night sky that we have seen in a while, so as soon as we got back to our hotel room, this little baby was born.

This is set some time before the Branson twins are born, so Sybbie would be around ten in here. Enjoy and don't forget to review!

 **Disclaimer:** If I owned Downton Abbey, Sybil and Matthew would obviously still walk the Yorkshire earth.

* * *

_**étoiles** _

_25 December 1930_

It was a contrast awe-inspiring to behold – the whiteness that sprawled beneath them and the inky hue that shot above them, dotted with numerous yet minuscule shocks of white dancing in their places. In the distance the lights that glowed in the big house extinguished themselves one by one. His arms were around her shoulders and her head rested against the crook of his neck as they sat in the motor, parked on a clearing that gave them a clear view of the night sky. From nearby, the perfume of various pines and firs mixed with the chill of the evening winter air.

"I've done this quite often with Mary and Edith when I was Sybbie's age, you know," she whispered, burying further against his neck.

"What, sneaking off in the motor in the dead of winter to hide behind the trees?" he teased.

"No," she laughed, "to watch the stars."

His lips buzzed with silent laughter as he pressed a kiss to her hair. He knew that was the country girl in her talking. Their life in London gifted her independence, the ticket to a life so different from the one she had been raised in, free from her family's judgment; that life very much became her and he rejoiced in the certainty that such a life gave her so great a happiness, but city life did have less pleasurable aspects, however small, and the shining lights and heavy smog that was the London atmosphere ensured that stars, so numerous in Yorkshire, were a rare sight in the capital.

"They were already in their teens then, Mary and Edith," she resumed, "they had already renounced games so I was often left to my own devices but watching the stars was always something we three did together. Mary and Edith even stopped fighting during those moments; Mamma proclaimed it was a miracle!"

"Was Lady Grantham part of these escapades?" he asked, thrilling as he always had in hearing stories of the little Sybil from many years past. Even after almost eleven years of marriage, it delighted him to no end that there remained so much more for him to hear and learn.

"Sometimes," her eyes glazed in reminiscing, "Papa too. But it was always the Crawley sisters' special thing, I suppose. It was us three and everyone else only joined in as our guests."

"Would they have their own special thing, do you think?" he asked minutes later, his eyes and thoughts far away, his free hand lying absently atop her expanding abdomen.

"Who would?"

"Sybbie…and the baby."

The smile that graced her features could have lit the entire world. It was a rare phenomenon, in the months that have passed, for him to remark about the future, or their coming child, as if afraid that fate should hear and finally accomplish what it had failed to do the day of their firstborn's birth. She let out a breath she did not know she held and her hand found itself entwined with his on her stomach. "Your Da will love you whatever happens," she wanted to tell their child, "If the worst happens, at least you will have him and Sybbie."

"They would have that. I'm sure of it," she responded, her thoughts returning to the present, "They would build snowmen in winter, dance in the garden in summer, watch the stars in whatever season, be such hellions that Granny would chastise us for letting them run wild and Carson would be so scandalized – and we would be part of some of that fun."

"Only some?" he questioned, confusion in his voice. Contrasting his wife's childhood, their daughter's own was never found wanting in parents much willing to be covered in mud, be improper and noisy to join in the children's fun.

"Yes," her laughter rang like bells, "Because even when we join all their romps and mischief, we would only be guests in others. Mary, Edith, and I have only welcomed Mamma and Papa as such and our girls will no doubt do the same to us. It would be the Branson sisters' own special thing."

"Sisters?"

"It is only a feeling, Tom. But I feel quite certain the baby is a girl… Would you be terribly disappointed if it is?"

"Not at all," a smile graced his features as he thought of their first little girl, an easy happiness that surprised him mingling with the anxiety that was ever present. Another little girl would be an indescribable delight, "Only there would be three Sybils going against me, love."

"She may become just like you, you know," her smile grew brighter if that was possible, "Sybbie is already too much like me, darling. I would love for our next little girl to be just like you."

"She would be stubborn then, and impulsive," he laughed.

"And full of herself," she teased, her voice spoke of love and affection.

"Exactly! Imagine the havoc she and Sybbie would inflict!"

Today, he allowed himself to let go of a small amount of paralyzing fear. If only for today, he allowed himself to dream of a future where their girls would run wild, as his wife's grandmother would say, and both she and he would be there to watch, standing by the sidelines, laughing at the antics of children so like themselves. It was his Christmas present to himself.

"But she would also have an unwavering sense of justice," his wife added from his side, "she would be a hard worker and she would have drive and ambition that would allow her to rise beyond status and circumstance. She and Sybbie would raise hell but they would be our little hellions."

He marveled at the image that formed in his mind of their two beautiful little girls, a big sister and a little sister, dresses dirtied and hands clasped after a day of mischief, as they gazed into the stars in the garden of their house in London, in a clearing in Downton, in a beach in Ireland.

"She and Sybbie would be just like you and Mary," he stated, looking into her eyes. His sister-in-law had once balked at even the mere idea of them but she had protected their secret until his Sybil had decided to bet on him and they had been ready to tell the world of their love. Mary had always sought to protect her baby sister, after all – amidst her own disapproval, she had also gone to Dublin for her sister's wedding when their parents had not, during the dark and lost days marked by the helplessness and terror following Sybbie's birth, Mary (and Matthew, of course) was their strongest ally – she still was. Wifehood and motherhood had only strengthened the attachment between the sisters and it was further fortified by the need to fill the gap and pain that Edith's unexplained distance had brought about. He wanted such a bond for his daughters, "They won't agree over everything but Sybbie will be her protector and ally even when we are not."

"Do you think so?," a hopeful smile was in her voice.

"I do."

A comfortable silence descended upon them as their gazes returned to celestial bodies still and dancing above them – Sirius, Orion, Betelgeuse, Andromeda, Cepheus. A cold breeze blew past them and he held her tighter against him to keep her warm. He raised their enlaced hands and kissed the one which belonged to her before returning them to their previous position on her stomach.

"We have also watched the stars together before, do you remember?," her sweet tones penetrated the mélange of darkness and light.

"It was our first Christmas as man and wife, love. How could I forget?" he joined her in the world of reminisces, "we were poor as church mice, living on your father's allowance with no money to buy each other presents and we spent the evening after mass on a blanket on my Mam's yard looking at the stars."

"We were expecting Sybbie then," their child moved beneath their hands as she spoke, "eleven years later, here we are again."

"Promise me that we will do this again next year with our girls," his eyes were back on her. He could not keep the worry from his tone as he implored, "Promise me, Sybil. Promise me that we will both be here. Please."

"I promise." There was strength in her voice, one that was colored by certainty.

He cupped her face in his palm and their lips met in a sweet rapture. For many minutes, the world was only them and no one else. A swift kick from one side of her stomach was followed by another and their hands fell back on their previous places, ensuring their daughters (although neither had known yet) that their presence had not been forgotten.

His arm returned to be enlaced around her shoulders and her head burrowed once again into his neck. From the distance, the last light of Downton Abbey's upstairs had been extinguished, letting them know that their eldest daughter was now sleeping soundly. Beneath their entwined hands, their youngest daughters danced, telling them exactly how they felt of the hypocrisy of bedtimes when their Mamma and Da were still awake. Against their gloved hands, a snowflake fell, cold and beautiful and enchanting.

"Happy Christmas, love."

"Happy Christmas, darling."


	2. contes de fée, part un

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Little did she know that behind the children's sleeping smiles, ideas of games and innocent mischief were already forming. Little did she know that it was she who had given them the ammunition."

**A/N:** This was originally intended to be the first chapter but star-gazing at the beach and Christmas had other plans, so this became the next chapter. That's not to say I love this any less, only that timing took over. Anyway, many reviews of Lux Facta Est noted that there aren't nearly enough Sybbie and George stories out there, and I agree, so this will be about them. This story is actually a reference to Chapter Four of Lux Facta Est when George recalled that Sybbie had not cried for her parents in that way since she was lost as a little girl. It will be a two-parter and be 100% shameless fluff (which is apt, won't you agree, after all the angst of Lux Facta Est?).

I came across  _The Seventh Princess_  by Eleanor Farjeon some time ago and I thought that the ending was something so S/T so I included it here as a bedtime story.

Don't forget to review!

**Disclaimer:** If DA was mine, Sybil and Matthew would still walk the Yorkshire earth.  _The Seventh Princess_  belongs to Eleanor Farjeon and  _La belle au bois dormant_  to Charles Perrault. I used Perrault's version because Disney's would obviously not yet exist at this point, but I abridged the story for time constraint and dragging reasons, and I changed the ending because I cannot for the life of me imagine how Perrault's version had become a children's fairy tale given the  _very, very_  adult themes of the plot.

* * *

_contes de fée, part un_

_1925_

"Not Nanna's book, Mamma! Something new! Something splendid!"

"Awf'lly splendid, Aunt Sybil!"

"Alright," Lady Sybil Branson née Crawley smiled, setting on a night table the book of Gaelic fairytales her mother-in-law had given her daughter during the family's visit to Dublin in the summer, the first since the beginning of their exile in Downton five years past.

Of course only her husband, with his uncanny ability to give such distinct voices to each leprechaun, mage and fae, was granted the exclusive privilege to read from the enchanted volume of tales, she reminded herself with much amusement. But Tom, along with Matthew were to be home late, meeting with a tenant on the far side of the estate, while Mary was deployed to London to accompany Cousin Rose on an errand of sorts. Sybil therefore enjoyed tonight the sole pleasure of tucking the children in and reading the bedtime story of their choice while the nanny was sent to enjoy her dinner in the Servants' Hall.

"What story shall it be?," she asked the two children, already snuggled beneath the sheets of their respective beds.

"Something with dragons and magic!," her nephew began.

"And fairies!," her daughter continued.

It was then that she had spotted a worn lilac tome among the shelves of children's books that occupied a corner of the nursery. The book was one Sybil knew well. It was a collection of Perrault, long untouched, from where she and her sisters were read to in early childhood. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it had survived the wrath of the years to serve for the children before her the same purpose it had served their mothers once upon a time. She took the book from the shelf and allowed herself a small amount of nostalgia as she looked at the illustrations that graced every other page. At last, she stopped, finding a story that fit well with the requests she had received even if she found it rather silly.

She sat at the end of her daughter's bed and read aloud, " _La belle au bois dormant_. The Sleeping Beauty."

How apt, she laughed to herself, to read such a tale to two children all set for bed!

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away," she began, "lived a king and a queen who so longed for a child but for many, many years, despite many, many prayers, only continued to wait."

She felt a small twinge of sadness at that, recalling her small daughter's hopes for a baby sister, hopes that if she and Tom were honest, they shared. But it could not be, as she and Tom have agreed. The drama of Sybbie's birth had proved to them too much to dare risk another pregnancy that could finally succeed in taking her. She pushed aside her thoughts, returning to the story and not noticing her namesake's wide blue eyes that watched her intently.

"One day, at long last, a child was finally born to the king and queen – a beautiful little daughter. For the baptism of the little princess, the king and queen named as godmother all the fairies they could find in their great kingdom. Seven have been found and each gave the little princess a gift, as it was the custom in those times, and each gift had come together to accord the little princess all the perfection imaginable. She was given beauty and sweetness, as well as skill and intellect. The baptism of the little princess was concluded by a feast for her godmothers. In the feast, no one had remarked the coming of an old fairy that resided in a large tower. No one had thought to invite the old fairy because she never left her tower and so, all believed her dead or accursed. The old fairy was offended and gave as a gift to the little princess that one day she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. This horrible gift frightened every member of the feast and none could speak a single word."

Two frightened children then rose from their covers and like two balls, threw themselves into her. She put one arm around her daughter and another around her nephew. Two children cuddled against her, she resumed the story, knowing full well that the terror only served to augment its appeal.

"A young fairy, hidden behind a tapestry then appeared to give her gift and reverse the curse accorded by the old fairy. 'Fear not, my king and queen,' she said, 'it is true I am not strong enough to reverse entirely the old fairy's curse but the princess will not die. The princess will prick her finger on a spindle but she will not die. She will instead fall asleep for a hundred years at the end of which the kiss of a prince will awaken her.'"

"A hundred years seem rather long, Mamma! If I was a princess, I don't know if I can wait that long!," Sybbie called out from her right.

"It is rather long, isn't it, my darling?" Sybil said solemnly, pressing a kiss to her daughter's wild blonde curls, "I myself would likely give up the prince and wake myself a quarter of the way through if it means not spending all those years idle in a rosy bed!"

"It would be quite unpleasant for the prince to kiss someone who has slept for a hundred years, won't it, Aunt Sybil?," George added from her left.

"I'm sure it would, George. I cannot even begin to imagine how awful her breath must smell after all those years," she replied just as solemnly, ruffling her nephew's fine, blond locks, "Should we find another story then?"

"No! This story has magic!," The children cried in unison.

"This story has fairies!"

"This story has dragons!"

"Alright then," she smiled, continuing where she left off, "At the end of fifteen or sixteen years, the king and queen retired to their castle in the countryside and the princess was left to roam the vast castle. In one of the rooms, she saw a woman weaving with the only spindle left in the kingdom. The princess was entranced and she asked if she could try to weave instead. The old woman, who was really the fairy in disguise, acceded to the princess' request. The princess pricked her finger on the spindle and instantly fell asleep."

"Uh-oh," Sybbie cried from her right.

"Remembering the gift of the last fairy, the king had the princess moved to a bed of gold, in the most beautiful room of the palace. The fairy who had gifted her the hundred years of sleep instantly mounted her dragons and set off to keep watch over the sleeping princess. Fearing that the princess will be lonely at awaking alone, she touched the whole castle with her magic wand and all had fallen asleep, only to wake with their sleeping princess. A hundred years passed and many young princes have heard of the tale of the sleeping princess and sought to be her champion. The road to the castle was dangerous, however, and filled with ogres and witches who were said to eat the flesh of those who dared enter their domain.

"Just like Hansel and Gretl, Mamma!"

"The prince, however, was not to be deterred. The words of a kind villager, really the fairy in disguise, encouraged him, and with the help of the fairy, he rode his dragon to the castle of the princess, slaying witches and ogres. When at long last, he kissed the beautiful princess, she awoke to tell him that she has met him in her dreams. The whole castle awoke and the prince and the princess lived happily ever after."

"More, Aunt Sybil! More!," George cried just as she had decided to carry each child, decidedly growing heavier against her, to their respective beds.

His eyes were half-closed but his voice was insistent.

On her other side, Sybbie implored her with her father's Irish blue eyes, hands clutching Catherine, the costly Belgian doll Granny Cora had insisted "Father Christmas" give her eldest and only granddaughter.

Sybil and Tom have protested over the doll's purchase, reasoning that such an expensive gift for such a little girl was unreasonable and reminding the family that they wanted their daughter to be raised in a world where she would not be weighed down or spoiled by privilege. Cora reasoned that no ambition, drive or sense of justice could be taken away by privilege in any child of her youngest daughter, adding, her eyes avoiding those of her daughter and son-in-law, that if Sybbie could not have the sister she so wanted on Christmas day, perhaps such a beautiful doll would do. With much reluctance in their hearts mixed with a weighing sense of guilt, Sybbie's parents have allowed "Father Christmas" to give little Miss Branson the doll henceforth named Catherine, now inseparable from her mistress.

The child had failed to suppress her great yawn and fought to keep her wide eyes open. The sight was so incredibly funny and charming that Sybil had great difficulty in restraining her laughter. My own little sleepy beauty, she thought fondly.

She walked back to the shelf of books, finally relenting, and pulled a volume in light blue – "The Seventh Princess by Eleanor Farjeon". She smiled. This book better suited her tastes. She returned to her daughter's bed and opened the book, knowing well that neither child will go to sleep without their second story. Ordering each child to return to their covers, "Once upon a time," she began once more, now telling the story of seven princesses cherished only for their long, beautiful hair, the longest of which would one day become queen. Her heart instantly went out to the youngest princess, the only one with ebony locks that her gypsy mother faithfully cut. The youngest princess was allowed to play in the fields, to run, to laugh, to be  _free_  because she did not have the fine, long, golden hair of her sisters. The sisters with their beautiful golden locks never left their prison that was the palace."

"'I will marry the princess that is to be queen of the kingdom,' the Ragged Servant of the Prince-of-the-World spoke for the prince, for he was much too great to stoop down to speak," she read aloud, finding the Prince-of-the-World worthy of the same ridicule she saw in many men haughty men in the aristocracy, a certain Larry Grey among them, "The Seventh Princess was then dismissed and she left the great hall to play in the fields and run among the flowers…"

The story concluded with the Seventh Princess leaving to see the world with the rather intelligent Ragged Servant of the Prince-of-the-World, while the Prince, his eyes cast down, spent the rest of eternity for one of the six princesses to grow her hair longer than that of the others.

"Just like Mamma…" Sybbie yawned, her mouth becoming a wide O, "and Da!"

Her long lashes fell over her lids, eyes that won't open until the morning, closed shut.

Sybil laughed softly, feeling herself transported into Dublin so many years ago, reveling at the beauty of the freedom she had won, Tom by her side. How wonderful it was in their little flat, only he and her in the world – Mr. and Mrs. Branson, not Mr. Branson and Lady Sybil – and Sybbie! Soon that freedom will be theirs once more, in London, a fresh start for the Bransons, with no scheduled dinners away from their daughter, no nannies, no tails, no evening gowns!, even if they had not yet dared to tell anyone else, not even their precocious daughter who would no doubt feel the separation from George – and Isis – very keenly.

It did not take long before soft snores filled the nursery, George having entered the world of dreams before Sybbie had. The light of the lamp casted orange reflections against the children's sleeping forms. Sybil pressed a soft kiss to her daughter's curls and another to her nephew's locks. She watched them for a moment before returning to the sitting room, exhausted by her day at the hospital and envious of the rest granted the children free from the nonsense of duty and propriety.

Little did she know that behind the children's sleeping smiles, ideas of games and innocent mischief were already forming. Little did she know that it was she who had given them the ammunition.

* * *

Today was spoilt. Spoilt beyond belief!

The plan of the day was to spend it jaunting in the grass, Isis at their heels, running and laughing and making crowns of flowers much as they had imagined the Seventh Princess would have done. The sun would be high and welcoming above them and they would both be so dirty at the end of the day that Nanny's and no doubt Gran Violet's eyes would become wide as saucers and  _pop out_  in the extremely funny way they always did when a noisy and dirty Sybbie was compounded by a noisy and dirty George.

"Really, Granny, they're little children!," Mamma would say, "they  _should_  be allowed to play, get dirty and have fun"

"I was always covered in mud and sweat as a child," Da would add.

"I don't doubt it," Gran would reply, an edge to her voice that neither Mamma nor Da would seem to mind.

Mamma and Da would then join in the fun and be dirty and sweaty and would laugh and laugh with them until their stomachs ached from laughing so much, and so would Uncle Matthew! Aunt Mary would look disapproving but would later laugh at the sight of the two grubby children and the three grubby adults acting just like children. Grandpapa  _would_  disapprove but would never bring himself to chastise his beloved grandchildren – Mamma, Da, and Uncle Matthew, well that was a different affair. Granny would laugh, really laugh and say, "None of us should expect any less of any child of yours, Sybil!"

But it was not to be, at least not today.

Mamma had gone to the hospital in the morning for her shift, Da and Uncle Matthew had set off after luncheon to survey Aunt Mary's pigs (as far as Sybbie could remember, they were always "Aunt Mary's pigs") and none will be back until dinner. Aunt Mary was still in London and so was Cousin Rose, Granny had left for Rippon after tea with the children, and Grandpapa was in York. Worst of all, the sun has decided, today of all days, to be bashful! The nerve! Grey, grey clouds gathered round the estate and torrents of rain noisily cascaded into the windows of the children's beloved domain that was the Downton library.

Sybbie would have been perfectly content playing under the rain and George, in the height of his boredom would have conceded for the mere sake of doing  _something_ , but Nanny had other views on the matter and neither would any of their parents be pleased to know that they have played under a noisy, raging storm, they suspected. So instead, here they were confined, indoors,  _indoors!_  As the thunderstorm continued, it mocked them, them who today would have been the Seventh Princess and her Not-At-All-Ragged-Servant. "You will stay inside today! No sun, no romps, no daisy chains!," it seemed to say to them, no not say,  _mock_.

"Stupid rain. Stupid, stupid rain," George said.

The rain only responded with a great growl and strong lightning.

The library was occupied by them and them alone. Nanny had allowed them to venture into the library on the condition that they behave perfectly, while she tidied the nursery and collected their laundry. His lordship was in York and could not complain, neither would he, she supposed, given the free reign Miss Sybbie and Master George were given in the room by his lordship himself. And what a free reign it was as within minutes Miss Sybbie and Master George had managed to cover a considerable area with papers carrying crayon sketches of the rain, of fairies, of horses, of knights and dragons and in the middle of it all sat the culprits themselves, already exhausted and frustrated by the boredom of the day.

Sybbie had been in the process of spelling her name on the corner of a drawing of a fairy – S-Y-B-B-I-E – and George in the process of adding an nth horn along the rear of a dragon when Isis came in, empathizing with the woes of her youngest master and mistress and unwittingly sitting down on the misshapen sketch of another dragon.

That was when magic happened.

The children's eyes met and Sybbie's wide blue ones became wider and bluer, George's own sparkled. In that quiet understanding, their eyes have said all that needed to be said and in a split second, pouts were replaced with grins marked especially by mischief. Papers were gathered up hastily ("We're perfectly capable of doing it as Mamma and Da always say," Sybbie would always say) and like two hurricanes, quite unknown in the lands of Yorkshire, they had  _wooshed_ through the length of the corridor, past more corridors and into the now tidy nursery, Isis at their heels.

"I will be the fairy that makes the princess and the castle sleep!," Sybbie cried excitedly, pulling from the wardrobe the bright pink-and-lilac fairy wings Cousin Rose had helped her make when she decided that she would be fae on her fifth birthday.

Five-year old Sybbie was no more eager to keep watch over a sleeping princess for a hundred  _long_ yeas any more than four-year old George was to kiss a princess who has slept for a  _hundred_  long years but as the old adage goes, beggars can't be choosers and at the very least, being a fairy was so much less idle than a damsel-in-distress sleeping in a bed of gold.  _That_  would have been the dullest cherry on top of an already unbearable boring day – and the sleeping princess did not wear such beautiful fairy wings!

"I shall be Prince George of Downton!," cried the other member of the newly-formed club of imaginations, unknowingly already taking early steps into the role he had been born to fill as he gathered the cloak he had worn at his cousin's party some months ago.

"What about Isis?," Sybbie questioned aloud.

George's eyes met Sybbies and both their gazes turned to poor Isis, already fearing the role Master George and Miss Sybbie would accord her which no doubt would involve carrying one or both to some corner of the big house unfrequented or prohibited to the children. But old Isis was nothing if not loyal and the children knew she would deny them nothing.

"Dragon!," the youngest residents of Downton cried in unison after several minutes of their faces crumpled in concentration. Sybbie's old hair ribbons were instantly procured and donned by Isis as soon as it had been decided that red ribbons were passable substitutes for the scales and horns of a ferocious dragon. Isis sighed in relief, thank heavens she was spared the second, much stuffier cloak hanging from George's open wardrobe!

Catherine was gently laid down on Sybbie's cot just as George's beloved bear, Theodore, was laid in his own. The quest was too dangerous, it had been decided, for Catherine and Teddy to come along!

And so, energized, laughing, and dressed more like children ready for All Hallow's Eve than heroes marching off to face unknown dangers, the trio of adventure seekers had set off to the Bachelors' Corridor to fulfill their first quest.

_To be continued..._


	3. contes de fée, part deux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Really, there are few as free as my Sybils!"

**A/N:** Thank you so, so much for reading and the support! Especially those who have followed the story since Lux Facta Est.

This will be the last part of Sybbie and George's Contes de fée, but I still have many plots to follow so stay on your toes. The next one involves a fluffy little dose of puppy love, and the Branson twins! Anyway, please don't forget to review and enjoy your stay!

**Disclaimer:** If DA was mine, Sybil and Matthew would still walk the Yorkshire earth.  _The Seventh Princess_  belongs to Eleanor Farjeon and  _La belle au bois dormant_  to Charles Perrault. I used Perrault's version because Disney's would obviously not yet exist at this point, but I abridged the story for time constraint and dragging reasons, and I changed the ending because I cannot for the life of me imagine how Perrault's version had become a children's fairy tale given the  _very, very_  adult themes of the plot.

* * *

_contes de fée, part deux_

Neither Sybbie nor George had ever stepped into the Bachelors' Corridor.

The library and garage were their domains, or rather, were Sybbie's domains where George claimed honorary ownership. The nursery was their kingdom, but in addition to their parents' bedrooms which were their mothers' rooms in maidenhood and the kitchen where Carson, Thomas and Mrs. Hughes pretended not to know that they stole cookies from Mrs. Patmoore's pile before dinner, these were all the children have known of the big house.

The Bachelor's corridor was something unknown – foreign, exciting, and frightening at the same time. It was another world altogether. It was also the place where, as they heard Thomas tell Baxter, Granny's ladies' maid, once when he thought they were not listening, a Turk guest from long, long ago was found in his bed dead.  _Dead_. Suppose his ghost haunted the Bachelor's Corridor? Suppose they caught sight of the ghost? What a scary and thrilling experience! That made all the difference and it was decided that the Bachelor's Corridor was to be the path they would undertake to find the sleeping princess, hidden in one of the rooms which was really her chamber in disguise. Perhaps the dead Turk was also somewhere there in disguise!

"Go, dragon, go!," the valiant prince George giggled as he sat atop his noble dragon, really becoming too old to bear the weight of her growing young master but too loving and loyal to do otherwise.

The most honorable Fairy Sybbie bounced on her feet alongside them, flapping her glittering wings as she guided them through the exquisitely-papered walls that were the forest labyrinth of enchantment and terrors, made even more enchanting and terrifying by the sound of rain falling against the walls and the ever-darkening of a rainy sky at dusk.

" _Banphrionsa, banphrionsa, teacht orainn a shábháil tú!*,"_  Sybbie chanted, laughing as only a half-Galeic fairy can.

"What does that mean, Sybbie?," George inquired as they turned into a corner.

" _Fairy_  Sybbie, George!," she insisted, her giggles ringing like bells into the darkening walls of corridor, "You're supposed to call me  _Fairy_  Sybbie!"

" _Fairy_  Sybbie then," George conceded, "And you have to call me  _Prince_  George! And what were you singing  _Fairy_ Sybbie?"

"I was telling the princess that we were coming,  _Prince_  George," Sybbie answered, her giggles still coloring her voice, "The princess speaks Irish, you know, just like me!"

"No, she doesn't! She only speaks English," George retorted, indignant at being left out.

"Yes, she speaks Irish!"

"No, she doesn't!"

"Yes, she does!"

"Na-uh, she doesn't!"

"Uh-huh, she does!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"She's asleep, she won't hear you,  _Sybil_!"

"Yes she would,  _Georgie!_  Princesses  _always_  hear fairies even when they're asleep!"

"No, she won't!"

"Yes, she would!"

"No, she wo –"

"Yes, she – what's happening George?," Sybbie gulped as they came into a stop in a dark, red room.

More dark and angry clouds gathered outside its window as rain continued to patter noisily. In a few minutes, the sky would turn ink-black and so would the room. Only a sliver of illumination radiated from the hall, a very tiny sliver.

"Is – is this the – the room where the p-princess is asleep, Sybbie?" George stuttered, frightened.

"N-no. I-I don't think so. M-maybe it's a trap of the witch or the o-ogre," Sybbie replied equally frightened, "M-maybe we should go."

A sudden burst of wind came into the room, closing the door with a bang and rattling the window. The curtains on the bed shook with the shock as the children, frightened beyond belief huddled in a corner, arms around each other, Isis at their feet.

Several minutes passed before Sybbie spoke, her blue eyes shining with fear in the dark.

"This is the room, isn't it" she asked, her voice calming enough for curiosity to pierce through the fright.

"What – what room?"

" _The_ room, George," she continued, irritation dripping in her tone, "The one Anna said Thomas shouldn't talk about when he was telling Baxter! The one where – where…"

The cryptic manner in which his cousin talked empowered George whose curiosity, like his cousin's, had overtaken his fear, "Where what, Sybbie?"

"Where the man with a funny name  _died_ ," Sybbie whispered, as if afraid of conjuring the dead man into the room.

A great surge of lightning penetrated the room, illuminating for a split second the bed where the children assumed the man with a funny name had died. There was nothing askew, except perhaps the curtains that the wind had blown apart earlier but logical reasoning had no place in the minds of two frightened little children who took this as a proof of the dead man's presence. The wind's howling only cemented this belief and when the room was once more plunged into darkness, George was in tears and Sybbie not far from it.

"I-it must be the witch or an o-ogre," Sybbie said, regretting bringing up the information and assuming the role of the eldest child in the room, attempting to calm both herself and her cousin enough to return to their enchanted game and away from the terrors that enveloped the room.

"It's – it's him, Sybbie! It's the man, I kno-know it is!," George was not to be comforted from his fears. Sobs racked his small body as he cried, "He – he's coming for us! The man with a funny name is coming for us! Mamma! Papa! I want my Mamma and Papa!"

"I – It isn't him, George, it isn't! He – he won't come to get us," Sybbie attempted but her voice began to crack. She willed herself to stay calm – only babies cry. She was five now, she was no longer a baby. If she waited long enough, Mamma and Da would find her. The witches won't get them. The ogres won't get them. The man with a funny name won't get them. No one will get them.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the room – and the dead man's bed once more. Sybbie's resolve was broken by the time the dark had settled again.

"Mamma! Da! Mamma! Da!," she screamed at the top of her little lungs, tears flowing in torrents down her alabaster cheeks, "Where are you, Mamma?! Da! I want my Da! I want my Mamma!"

Poor Isis was beside herself. She rubbed herself against the children's feet in an attempt to comfort them but to no avail.

The rain continued to howl and flashes of lightning intervened. On and on the children cried for their parents – oh where were they? Mamma and Da and Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew? Surely, surely they would come before the dead man did! Surely they would come before the man who died on the bed came to haunt them and perhaps devour them!

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes.

But to the frightened children, it felt like an eternity.

"Mamma! Da! Where are you? I want my Mammaaaaaa! I want my Daaaaaa!"

"Where are my Mamma and Papa? Mamma! Papa! Mamaaaaa! Papaaaa!"

The children's cries resonated throughout the Bachelors' Corridor but they seemed unheard.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes.

"Miss Sybbie? Master George? Isis?," Thomas exclaimed, Jimmy at his side.

He opened the door wide allowing light to flood into the room. At the corner by the far wall were two children, huddled together with a dog at their feet. Their faces were wet and their eyes red and swollen. Miss Sybbie's lilac dress was in disarray and so were here wings. Master George's clothes were crumpled and his cloak on the floor. And on Isis – why the very idea would have given his Lordship a heart attack! – were two of Miss Sybbie's hair ribbons! It was a relief it was not Mr. Carson or the Dowager Countess who had found them, their state would have caused a fainting fit within seconds!

Gathering Miss Sybbie in his arms and motioning to Jimmy to do the same with Master George, he cooed at the little girl, offering her candy from his pockets that no one knew he kept as they walked back, Isis at their heels, towards the top of the staircase, but she remained inconsolable, calling for her Mamma and Da even as Master George's cries had long since subsided into sobs. Damn that old bat of a nanny! She was no Nanny West, of course, but how she could leave her charges long enough to allow them to get lost infuriated Thomas, especially as he felt his heart break over Miss Sybbie's desperate cries.

"I want my Mamma and my Da! Where are my Mamma and Da, Thomas? Mammaaa! Daaa!"

"Sybbie?," Mr. Branson's voice resonated from the bottom of the stairs, now rushing to his daughter, taking two steps at a time, a worried Lady Sybil on one side and an equally worried Mr. Crawley on the other. Never in Thomas' entire career in Downton had he been so relieved to see them!

"Come here, darling," Mr. Branson cooed at his daughter as he took her into his own arms, allowing her to bury her wet, curly head into his neck while Lady Sybil stood beside them, rubbing Miss Sybbie's back and whispering sweet nothings to comfort the crying child who was babbling incomprehensible nonsense about a princess, a witch, a fairy and the ghost of a dead Turk (Mr. Crawley raised his eyebrows at that!) in the red room of the Bachelors' Corridor.

Master George was in his father's arms, happily munching on a chocolate bar produced from Jimmy's pocket when Nanny came rushing in looking exhausted.

"My lady, Mr. Branson, Mr. Crawley, I am so very sorry. I – I left the children in the library to tidy the nursery and…"

So frightful was the look she received from Thomas that she instantly excused herself, leaving her charges in the hands of their parents.

* * *

"…and then the door just banged and the curtains just  _wooshed_  and it was so, so dark," Little Sybbie Branson recounted later that night as she lay between Mamma and Da in Mamma and Da's bedroom, Catherine clutched in one hand, "I tried to tell George it was only the pretend witches and ogres in the story of the sleeping princess, I  _tried_ , Mamma and Da, I did! But it was so scary and…and…Thomas said that, but he didn't know George and I were listening so it was not his fault, a man with a funny name from Turkey from before, died in that bed! Well he didn't say that exactly, but he said they found the man with a funny name dead in that bed! We were so scared!"

Mamma and Da exchanged a perplexed look above her little head while Da ruffled her curls in a comforting gesture and Mamma held her little hand. It had been decided that neither child, shaken as they were by the belief that "The Ghost of the Man with a Funny Name" would follow them to the nursery, would spend the night there. As it was, after dinner which Mamma, Da and Uncle Matthew had taken in the nursery despite Granpapa and Gran Violet's protests on impropriety, each child was whisked off to what were once their mothers' childhood bedrooms to spend the night with their parents.

"But Thomas and Jimmy found us and you came and – and," Sybbie's eyes became wide as saucers as the real purpose of their quest came back to her, "George forgot to kiss the sleeping princess!"

Da laughed at that and Mamma's gaze changed from perplexity to amusement.

"I suppose the princess would still be asleep then?," Mamma asked, unable to disguise the laughter in her voice.

"No, I don't think so," Sybbie answered earnestly, "If I were her I would have woken myself the very next day. It would be awfully boring to wait a hundred years for a prince when I could do so many, more interesting things instead! It's George's loss!," she finished using the phrase she once heard Cousin Rose use when she talked of a suitor.

"A suffragette at five, just like her mother!," Da exclaimed, adoration coloring his tone, "Really, there are few as free as my Sybils!"

* * *

* _Banphrionsa, banphrionsa, teacht orainn a shábháil tú! -_ Princess, Princess, we have come to save you. I only used Google Translate for this so please correct me if I'm wrong.


	4. chasse, part un

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It would probably have done Grandpapa good to remember who his youngest granddaughter's parents were and to know that for that, Saoirse would not be deterred.

**A/N:**  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the follows, the reviews, and everything, not only here but since Lux Facta Est, I can't express enough how thankful I am.

As promised in the last chapter, this two-parter will focus on the youngest Branson family member (but the rest of the Bransons will feature here largely - and more of the Crawley lot, fear not). This story is actually partly based on a children's novel but I'll expand on that later. Thanks again so much for following, it really means a lot! Don't forget to review,  _s'il vous plait_!

**Disclaimer:** If DA was mine, Sybil and Matthew would obviously still walk the Downton earth.

* * *

_chasse, part un_

_1936_

"Of course, you two will be joining us for the hunt?," Aunt Mary inquired.

"You know I don't hunt, Mary," Da replied, exasperation in his tone, "besides, I can't say I agree with such an extravagance in times like these."

"It is rather inappropriate," Mamma added, "the aristocracy going for a shoot while the rest of the country is in an economic depression."

"I take it you both still read those socialist newspapers, then?" Gran Violet scoffed from the chaise longue.

Her voice had a treble to it that had not been there before and her posture denoted that no longer was she "strong as an ox," but her tongue was something the years could only succeed in sharpening.

"They do have a point, you know," Aunt Isobel said, coming to Mamma and Da's aid.

"Perhaps," Aunt Mary sighed, "but Papa is persistent. He won't be dissuaded from holding a hunt."

"It's his way of taking his mind off from all this talk of another war," Uncle Matthew said, the vexation in his tone implying that he too would love for something to take his mind off the possibility of more bloodshed so soon after what he was beginning to realize had been a useless war.

"Regardless," Mamma interjected, "Tom and I cannot join you for the hunt, we have already made plans that day."

"What plans?"

"If you must know," Da grinned, "We are to spend the day in Ripon on a date."

"But what is a date?," Gran Violet asked, "No doubt some horrid, new fangled trend people in London are raving about?"

"No, Gran Violet!," little Saoirse Branson enthused from her place beside her mother, "A boy would ask a girl to go with him to the pictures, only the two of them and they would hold hands and –"

"And they would kiss! It's  _terribly_  romantic!," Saoirse's twin, Aoife finished from her place beside her father, annoyed that her sister, younger by  _ten whole minutes_ , had overtaken her in sharing her knowledge of dating. "Persis James from school told me that her brother wanted to ask Sybbie on a date but I told her that Sybbie won't do that because she thinks Arthur James is dull as paint and pomp –  _pompous_ ," she finished, helping herself to a "big person" word to assert her maturity.

Silence.

Profound, still silence.

The noise of a pin dropping would have been most welcome.

Then –

"Aoife!" Three earth-rattling voices called at once – Sybbie, red-faced and torn between amusement at her innocent sisters' apparent worldliness and frustration for her choosing that very moment to reveal how that worldliness included herself ("Now Da's going to be in a fit, just you wait and see!), Gran Violet whose eyes popped and would soon begin to rattle on and on about the death of impropriety and the thing babes learn from the uncouth London air ("From the mouth of babes! Whatver shall come upon us next?!"), and Da, whose face blanched, no turned blue; here were his  _babies_  talking about  _kissing_  in the darkened rooms of picture houses ("Why would children even talk about such things?!" he would complain to his wife later that night), telling the whole family that his very first little girl had been invited to them.

Da tried to caught Mamma's eye to find some semblance of sympathy, only to be greeted by the horrid sight of her guiltily looking at her shoes.  _She knew!_

"Sybil!"

"Darling, Sybbie asked me not to tell you. She said no, so we decided there was no point in worrying you over it."

"She is only sixteen!"

"And she knows her own mind well enough to say no. Really, Tom, you could get too protective at times! See, this is why she did not want you to know," Mamma's tone was more affectionate and amused than exasperated. His protectiveness of his womenfolk was something Mamma very much loved in Da, as trying as it was at times.

"May I join the hunt, Mamma?," nine-year old Margaret Crawley asked, putting an end to that conversation, at least for the moment.

"I'm afraid not, darling. George will be bringing a chum or two from Eton and a number of your grandfather's friends will be accompanied by their grandsons. It's going to be much too rowdy a company for a young girl," Uncle Matthew replied, equally wishing to keep his own little girl away from male eyes outside the family, at least until her coming out.

"Can this date not be rescheduled? Rose will not be back from Argentina until the day after and Edith and Aunt Rosamund continue to insist that the presence of so many children at Downton will be too taxing for them," Aunt Mary said, rolling her eyes at what she perceived as her younger sister's exaggerations.

"No, Mary," Mamma was exasperated, "We've had this date planned for weeks and we won't cancel it because Papa won't be dissuaded from his hunt."

"Will the girls be joining you, then?," Aunt Mary asked, her voice resigned.

"No. Mamma insists on bringing the twins to the fair and Sybbie has been eager to see George."

"Well that's a relief. We women are undersupplied enough as it is. Sybbie would be a great help at the hunt, I'm sure."

"In the company of those rowdy boys?!," Da started, "Maybe we  _should_  reschedule to after the hunt?"

"Tom, we are not rescheduling a date we've had planned for weeks because you are worried over some schoolboy being near our daughter," Mamma's voice was exasperated  _and_  annoyed now, "Sybbie is not a baby. She knows how to hold herself with boys and she knows how to say no."

"Besides," Uncle Matthew added, well understanding the fears of his brother-in-law and wanting to be of help, "George and I will be there to keep guard."

"If Sybbie can go, does that mean  _I_  can go too, Da?," Aoife implored with wide blue eyes so similar to her mother's.

"Me too, Da! Can  _I_  go too?," Saoirse added, not wanting to be left out of anything her twin sister was allowed to do.

Resigning himself to his fate, Da pressed a kiss to Aoife's straight, ebony locks and reached for Saoirse from across Mamma to do the same. "Promise me you two will never grow up!," he implored, cuddling his twin daughters to his chest.

Five-year old Saoirse Branson had no intention of growing up any time soon, but the need for adventures have to be satisfied and if that meant being every bit as grown-up as her adored eldest sister, then so be it.

* * *

The sounds of Grandpapa and the older members of the hunting party setting off at the break of dawn have stirred Saoirse from her sleep. Gazing out of her window, the excitement of the sight of the horses and her grandfather ready for action and adventure drove her out of her bed and out into the chill of the dawn air beyond the front door. The soft fabric of her nightgown blew against her small frame as her small, bare feet padded on the cold, stone floor. In her arms was clutched the small, plush mouse that was once Sybbie's in early childhood.

"Grandpapa! Wait for me! I want to go!"

"Sissy?!," Grandpapa answered, calling her by his special nickname for her, the only member in the family still unable to correctly pronounce her Christian name. Shock colored his voice at the sight of his small granddaughter. In the soft light of the dawn, she looked very much the part of a wee Celtic sprite. Thank heavens she was too young for the state of her wear to be considered inappropriate! Saoirse – no one else in the world was more appropriately named than his youngest granddaughter! What a free spirit she already was!

"Sissy," Grandpapa resumed when he had regained his senses, "What are you doing awake so early? Where is Miss Andrews? Are your parents awake?"

"No –,"

"Why, hello there young lady!," Lord Merton interrupted, offering Saoirse a wide smile. Saorsie did not know anything of the business between her father and Lord Merton's son, Larry from years ago and only knew from what George said, that Lord Merton was before keen on Aunt Isobel (Imagine that!). But the elderly Lord Merton had a kind smile and at that moment, Saoirse Branson decided that he was a nice man.

"You must be Lady Sybil's little girl, yes?," Lord Merton continued, knowing that his goddaughter's little girl would be older than the child in front of him and Lady Sybil's eldest nearing the age of her debut, "Off to join the hunt, are we? Well, my dear your Aunt Mary was quite the accomplished horsewoman even when she was a little girl!"

Saoirse's blue eyes widened in delight and she turned to her grandfather.

"Can I come then, Grandpapa? Please let me come, please!"

Grandpapa breathed in exasperation, turning his eyes away from the azure that were not only those of his youngest daughter's but also those of his wife's, the "No" he knew he had to say not quite coming to his lips.

"Sissy –,"

"Please, Grandpapa! I'll be a good girl, I promise. Please!"

"I'm afraid it would be a rather boring time, however, with us old codgers," Lord Merton laughed, now realizing his mistake in encouraging the child, "I expect you would have a much grander time playing in the sun with your sister and cousin."

"I don't want to play with Aoife! She stole Niamh from me! Sybbie told me she was mine but Aoife took her and won't give her back, I hate Aoife!," Saoirse huffed.

"Her doll," Grandpapa sighed by way of explanation to Lord Merton.

While individually his granddaughters have each taken after his daughter and son-in-law to varying extents, collectively they seemed to form a sort of parody of his own children's childhood with his youngest daughter's miniature as the firstborn and the much-younger twins acting more and more as their Aunts Mary and Edith have many years ago. Much as he loved his granddaughters, he found himself admitting that his youngest daughter's stubbornness and his son-in-law's persistence compounded by his older daughters' perpetual tendency to find something to argue about, nurtured from the earliest childhood, were a volatile combination. There were times, like today, that he found himself lucky for not living through the twins' arguments on a daily basis. Once was enough for any lifetime.

"Saoirse?"

The child's head lifted at the sound of her Mamma's voice, descending the stairs of the great hall, Da at her side.

"Are you alright, darling?," Mamma asked, worry in her tone.

"I'm going hunting with Grandpapa!," was the cheerful response.

Grandpapa's response was an exasperated sigh that had went beyond his granddaughter's persistence. Impropriety may be forgiven in his granddaughter of five, but not in his adult daughter who wore but a robe over her nightgown and his adult son-in-law still in pajamas. His irritation was only augmented by the sight of their bare feet.

"We went to the nursery to check on the twins," Da began, "but Saoirse was missing from her bed and we saw that the –,"

Da's explanation was cut off by the soft tones of Saoirse's eldest sister's "Mamma? Da?" as Grandpapa's irritation mounted over the approaching figure of his eldest granddaughter, the very image of her mother save for her blonde locks, clad as her mother was in a robe and nightgown, feet as bare as the rest of the family's, leading by the hand a sleepy, bare-footed, wee Celtic sprite identical to the one before him. How they lived and dressed in their London home was their affair, but surely, the Bransons could practice a minimum of propriety when they visited Downton!

"Aoife woke me to say that you were not in bed. I thought you would not leave for Ripon until after breakfast? Is everything alright?," Sybbie began, stopping when she realized the presence of company before her family.

"Oh, good morning, please excuse my state" Sybbie said to the crowd of Grandpapa's friends atop horseback, and to Grandpapa, "I'm terribly sorry, Grandpapa. Saoirse was out of bed and Aoife was so distressed that Mamma and Da were too, so when we saw that the front door was open…"

Grandpapa softened at that, Sybbie has after all, always been his little darling.

"It's alright, Sybbie. I was just telling your sister –"

"Sybbie!," Saoirse shrieked at her sister, "I'm going hunting with you and Grandpapa and Georgie!"

It was fortunate perhaps that Aoife's "I'm  _older_  than Saoirse, does that mean I can come too?" and Da's mutters over his daughters taking part in such an aristocratic sport in the middle of a crisis were overtaken by Sybbie and Mamma kneeling by the eager little girl, breaking the sad news to her in a manner more gentle than Da , Aoife and Grandpapa if pushed further would have done.

"Darling, Grandpapa is going off to shoot birds and he won't be playing, you wouldn't want that would you?"

"No! But, they're going on an adventure!"

"Saoirse, I'm only doing this is a favor for Aunt Mary. Won't it be more fun to pretend Aunt Mary's pigs are horses?"

"But –,"

"Darling, this won't be your kind of fun, I promise."

And with that, Grandpapa and the elderly crew were off, leaving the insistent child in the much more capable hands of her mother and sister, very much believing that the matter would finally end there.

It would probably have done Grandpapa good to remember who his youngest granddaughter's parents were and to know that for that, Saoirse would not be deterred.

* * *

Just as planned, Mamma and Da were off to Ripon after breakfast.

"Do you have to stay in a hotel to watch the pictures?," Aoife, who had yet to see one, inquired shortly after the last crumb had been eaten. Etiquette at the dining room was always more relaxed when Grandpapa was away and today found the nursery's occupants seated among the adults.

"The pictures don't last so long," George carelessly answered from between Granny and Sybbie.

"Then why are Mamma and Da spending the night in Ripon?," Aoife persisted.

"Your Da and I want to spend some time together, darling," Mamma answered from beside Saoirse.

"But you're together now!"

"We want to spend some  _alone_  time together, love," Da added from beside Aoife.

"So long as you're careful," Sybbie smirked, cheek coloring her tone.

"Every bit her mother!," Gran Violet sighed, "Vulgarity is no substitute for wit, Sybbie."

The admonition confused Saoirse and turning to her father with the greatest innocence in her voice, she asked, "Da, will you and Mamma be kissing in the hotel too, after you've kissed at the pictures? Is that why you're staying in the hotel, to have more time to kiss? Are you going to make love?"

"Saoirse!," came the scandalized voices from Gran Violet and Granny.

"Your parents will be watching many, many pictures, Saoirse. Won't you Aunt Sybil, Uncle Tom?," George said, rescuing his little cousin from more confusion and his grandmother and great-grandmother from further scandal.

"Oh," Saoirse conceded before continuing, knowing very well what Mamma's answer would be but finding in this the ammunition she would need, "Will it be so terribly boring, Mamma? Can't I come with you?"

"I'm afraid not, darling," Mamma answered, already understanding her daughter's agenda.

"I'll behave, I promise!"

"Darling…"

"Alright then," Saoirse conceded, giving her family the funniest staged sigh, "I suppose I can just go hunting with Sybbie and Georgie and Georgie's friends! They can't be boring old codgers like Grandpapa's friends, would they?"

"Saoirse!," was Gran Violet's admonition, "Please tell me you did not tell them that to their faces this morning!"

"No – but that's what they called themselves, Gran."

"They're not old or boring, exactly" George answered, "But they are quite a grubby and rowdy bunch of fellows, Sissy. Mamma is dragging Sybbie into this to set them straight."

"As if I could do that!" Sybbie retorted, "Charlie Bryant is the only one who doesn't act like he has just escaped from the zoo!"

"And that zoo is supposed to include me? Really, Sybbie, I thought you were my ally!" George laughed, "But really, Saoirse, it's a shame that you and Meg and Aoife are so insistent on joining us when you could spend the day torturing Fraulein Schublig or whatever it is you girls love to do on a beautiful day."

"But they do look so charming, George! Especially Lord Branksome's nephew!," nine-year old Meg swooned.

"Margaret Isobel," Uncle Matthew began, exasperated.

"Isn't he the one Charlie Bryant says is dry as paper?" Sybbie said as an aside to George.

"Oh, you do sound so much like Rose when you talk like that, Meg!" Aunt Mary admonished from beside her daughter as Mamma began to usher Da out the door, seeing hesitancy creep back into his eyes over the fear of his firstborn's inevitable exposure to "those charming boys" and his youngest two's want to partake of the said exposure.

"We best be off," Mamma said as she and Da stood up, followed by Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew and George and Sybbie, who set off to get dressed for the hunt.

"George, promise me you will stay by Sybbie the entire time," Da implored from the door's threshold, turning to Saoirse and Aoife before exiting entirely, "And the answer is still no."

"The same goes for you, Meg," rang Uncle Matthew's voice.

Not even Gran Violet's disapproving gaze nor Carson's notable look of displeasure could rouse Saoirse from her slouched position as her eyes shot daggers at her father's retreating figure beyond the dining room door.

_To be continued..._

* * *

**A/N:** Aren't Tom and Matthew the cutest, most adorable overprotective dads in the whole wide world? And to those who may be shocked that Tom and Sybil's five-year old knows about "making love," do you think Sybil would leave any of her girls in ignorance?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sissy, what are you doing?," Meg called out behind the fence, Aoife standing primly at her side.
> 
> "I told you, we're having our own hunting party, only we won't have to shoot the birdies."
> 
> "What are we supposed to do then?"

**A/N:** As I said in the author's note in the last chapter, this story is partly inspired by a scene in a novel, which is L.M. Montgomery's  _Rainbow Valley_  (Book seven of the  _Anne of Green Gables_  series). That scene, which you will see soon, was one I chose for two reasons, first, it's a kind of mischief that I believe a daughter of Sybil's would definitely do and drag people into it as well, and second, because  _Rainbow Valley_  takes place in an idealized antebellum rural setting that romanticizes and glorifies childhood before the tragedy of war comes in - which is very much what this story is about, although the  _Rainbow Valley_  setting is set before the Great War (the Blythe twins are actually the same age as Sybil!) and this is set before the second. What I tried to do here is to create a childhood existence that is still so innocent and detached from what were deemed by the adults in the 1930s as serious concerns, one of which is obviously the impeding war (which Matthew and Robert were already fretting over in the last chapter), and another of which is among aristocratic circles of course, the persisting issue of social class.

Thank you, thank you again for following the story and don't forget to review!

 **Discalimer:** If DA were mine, Sybil and Matthew would obviously still walk the Yorkshire earth.

* * *

_chasse, part deux_

From her earliest recollections, the vast estate that was Downton Abbey invoked in Saoirse Branson mixed feelings. The old garage in Downton that had seen the blossoming of her parents' love story thrilled her little heart as much as it did her sisters'. Downton was where Mamma and Sybbie were born and Saoirse  _adored_  Mamma and Sybbie, and she would always hold the big house in awe for that. The nursery was lined with every costly and extravagant doll, plush animal and tea set Granny could gather for her granddaughters' visits since Mamma and Da would not let her give them as presents to take to the house in London. Saoirse was Mrs. Patmore and Daisy's special pet just as Thomas (somehow, he was never "Barrow" to Sybbie) and Mrs. Hughes formed an unlikely alliance over their devotion to Sybbie and the tenants on the estate had the greatest fondness for Aoife because they saw in her many of the qualities that had made her father the greatest agent Downton had possessed – of course that meant for Saoirse the best nibs and bites between meal times! Of course a visit to Downton meant Granny and Grandpapa, Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew, George and Meg, Gran Violet and Aunt Isobel, all whom Saoirse loved dearly.

On the other hand, visits to Downton meant sharing the nursery with Aoife (oh, the horror!) when Da's study in London had been converted to Saoirse's bedroom if only to have peaceful nights in the Branson household without the twins at each other's throats. Meals were taken away from the adults when in London, she and Aoife would fight for a place in Da's lap while Poppy, their maid-of-all-work cooked dinner, Sybbie set the table, and Mamma went over their lessons, asking everyone about their day. In London, she saw herself as a big girl, not like Sybbie of course, but definitely not the ignorant, naughty _baby_  everyone in Downton treated her as.

"I find it most inappropriate, Miss Saoirse, for a young lady such as yourself to be prancing about with those boys in the hunt!," Fraulein Schublig, Meg's horrid governess had scolded her after she was detached with great difficulty from her sister and cousin trailing behind Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew into the hunt. Her name was really Miss Andrews but one day long ago, George had remarked that she remined him of a German sausage and hence, the name Fraulein Schublig had stuck, at least in the giggled confines of the children's private conversations.

"Sybbie is a girl and she's joining the hunt!," Saoirse retorted, determined even as Meg and Aoife had long since given up.

"Miss Sybbie is sixteen years old and it would do her well to meet a young man from a respectable family before she makes her debut. I expect that is the reason why she has been asked to accompany Master George and his friends.

"Why would Sybbie need to meet young men before she makes a debut?," Aoife inquired from the other side of the nursery.

"To find suitors, dear me!," Fraulein Schublig replied, much annoyed at repeating what she believed was a simple fact to three children, "Miss Sybbie will be out soon. It won't hurt to start surveying husbands early, will it?"

"Why would Sybbie need a husband, Miss Andrews?," Aoife resumed.

"All girls need to marry eventually, Miss Aoife."

"Not Sybbie! She's going to be a doctor and that would take years she says! Besides, Cousin Rose is not married and neither is Aunt Edith nor Aunt Rosamund!," Saoirse replied, equally recognizing it as a simple fact.

Fraulein Schublig grunted. All the liberal nonsense children picked-up in London! She would not at all be surprised if Miss Saoirse or Miss Aoife arrived in Downton one day wearing those horrid trousers she heard Miss Sybbie so proudly wore during a trip to Harrods with her grandmother some time ago! Trousers in Harrods, the very idea!

"Lady Rosamund is a widow, not a spinster, Miss Saoirse. Lady Rose is tolerated by the aristocracy as an oddity and as for Lady Edith, well, there are rumors they say, circulating in London that –," Fraulein Schublig stopped herself there, fearing the beginning of a subject not suitable for children. "In the case of Miss Sybbie, I hope for her sake that all this doctor nonsense will be forgotten by the time she makes her debut. An earl's grand _daughter_ , a doctor! Imagine that!"

"Mamma doubts Sybbie will be willing to join the season. Anyway, I think it splendid that there will be a doctor in the family!," Meg said, defending her adored older cousin, "Besides, George has his mind set on studying law just as Papa did. A profession can't be all bad."

Fraulein Schublig's grunt turned into a sigh. Of course the girls were too young to understand, but then again she had always found Lady Sybil odd since she had married the family's chauffeur (a journalist was no better, she always thought) and Mr. Crawley was a solicitor in Manchester before he became heir. Adjustments must simply be made in understanding their children, lest she follow the fate of that nanny long ago that the staff downstairs whispered about.

"Nonetheless, none of you will be joining the hunt, Miss Margaret, but her Ladyship has conceded that you be allowed to play whatever other game you wish as long as you are ready by the afternoon to accompany her to the fair in the village. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to relay instructions for your luncheon to Mrs. Patmore. Should you decide to play outdoors, Miss Saoirse, for heaven's sake, please take care not to get grass stains on your dress!"

"Alright then," Saoirse sighed exaggeratedly, "If they don't want us in our hunting party then we won't."

It wasn't that Saoirse wanted to shoot animals for play. The very thought chilled her to the bone. But the formality of Downton was beginning to weigh on her and she longed for the freedom to run around Regent's Park and be dirty and messy as Poppy would allow her and Aoife to do when she conceded to take them with her to the market, or to stain her skirts with grass as she and Aoife and Sybbie and Mamma and Da would lie against the grass in the small garden behind the house to watch the stars on the rare nights London was not covered in smog. To put it simply, she wanted the freedom to have an adventure and she knew very well that her sister and her cousin wanted the very same thing.

The door shot behind them.

"I've an idea!," the child started once more as soon as the sound of Fraulein Schublig's footsteps waned in the distance, "We will have our own hunting party!"

"Uncle Tom and Papa have already said we could not, Sissy," Meg sighed, wanting very much to do as her cousin wanted but knowing that as the eldest child in the room, she had to draw the line.

"They've already taken all the horses, Silly!," Aoife added, quite pleased to find something to taunt her sister with, "What do you want us to hunt with, Aunt Mary's pigs?"

Saoirse's entire face lit up as it was wont to do when a brilliant, if mischievous, idea illuminated her mind.

"Of course!," she cried, already running down the grand staircase and out the door, not bothering for a coat, Meg and Aoife at her heels, stopping only when she reached the pig pen containing Aunt Mary's pigs. Seeing that the coast was clear, she began to climb the fence, taking care that the mud where the pigs trotted  _should_  stain the beautiful plaid of her dress.

"Sissy, what are you doing?," Meg called out behind the fence, Aoife standing primly at her side.

"I told you, we're having our own hunting party, only we won't have to shoot the birdies."

"What are we supposed to do then?"

"We ride Aunt Mary's pigs to the village and back," Saoirse giggled. The plan sounded more and more appealing the more she thought about it, "The fat, cross one is mine."

"That would be  _racing_  not  _hunting_ , Silly!," Aoife challenged.

Saoirse glared at her twin; how trying she could always be! She was already mounted on the massive porker when she answered, "So? I don't care. It would be fun; it was  _your_  idea anyway. And you don't have to come. You can stay here until Fraulein Schublig comes and be your boring, boring self, Princess Know-It-All!"

"Saoirse, I don't think Lady Mary would approve," called a voice.

Jack Bates then emerged from the nearby shed and approached the little girl on piggy-back.

He was nine-years old and quite lanky, his blond hair wind-blown and his skin bronzed from many hours spent outdoors. His parents were Anna, Aunt Mary's lady's maid and Bates, Grandpapa's valet, allowing him to develop a close friendship with Lord Grantham's three youngest granddaughters (despite Mr. Carson's disapproval of the acquaintance, "I know we have all become used to Mr. Branson, Mrs. Hughes, but suppose…," To which Mrs. Hughes would reply, "They are only children, Mr. Carson!" ), one of who was just his age and two who were only four years younger. While visits to Downton have seen Sybbie and George as the inseparable duo, the addition of Johnny into the little girls' circle completed their charmed quartet.

Jack was also one of the very few in Downton outside the family who called Saoirse simply Saoirsie and not "Miss Saoirsie". Even Jack's big, older brother Robbie who was so much bigger and older than Saoirse was so unnervingly deferential! But never Jack – as far as she could remember, he always had an easy familiarity about him and she liked him immensely for that.

"Let me worry about her. Really, Jack, today  _I_ give the orders," Saoirse laughed by way of response, "Now, are you joining our hunting party to the village or are you staying here with my  _boring_  sister?"

Aoife shot her twin a pointed look that could kill, while nevertheless mounting an equally large pig. As enjoyable as taunting her sister was, it was not worth the bother of being prim and proper with Fraulein Schublig and missing out on the fun. At the very least, come Aunt Mary's scolding, which always came when her beloved pigs were dealt with an indignity, she could very well put  _all_  the blame on Saoirse. That would teach her to call her boring!

Jack hesitated before a rather more docile swine, blissfully lying in the mud ignorant of the role it was to play. Lady Mary would be most displeased and Mum would be displeased which would make Dad most displeased enough to give him a scolding and perhaps prevent him from playing with the youngest granddaughters of the house "So that you don't get them into any more scrapes," well until after the youngest Miss Branson had returned to London. Mr. Carson would grumble in the privacy of Mrs. Hughes sitting room (where they believed he did not know the secret listening nook) that as delightful as the child admittedly was, he had to learn his place, recalling incidents of bi-elections and counts and Lady Sybil and Mr. Branson that Johnny could not understand. Then again, Jack was very fond of Saoirse. He was fond of Aoife and Meg as well, and with them he was likewise one of the few who called them by their first names (titles of deference to them would mean nothing to him until much later), but there was something so invigorating about Saoirse's impulsive and free spirit that he felt himself instinctively drawn to her. In a split second, he climbed the lazy pig, knowing after all that he could not deny Saoirse.

"Stop being so prissy, Meg!," Aoife called out to their cousin who stood clean and immaculate beyond the fence, already forgetting how opposed she was to her sister's idea.

"Uncle Tom and Papa have insisted we mustn't join the hunt," Meg answered, still convinced of the responsible role she must play as the eldest.

"But we're not joining the hunt," Saoirse giggled, "We're having our own. And Mamma won't mind  _this_."

Meg hesitated a minute further and climbed a large but docile pig beside Jack. That much was true, Aunt Sybil was  _never_  opposed to the idea of the children running wild and dirty for the sake of fun. She often even joined in the fun and dirtiness when she was in their company.

"A hunting we will go!," Saoirse screeched kicking her heels into the sides of the startled pig and with that four dazzled porkers made their way out of the estate and into the village at tip-top speed.

* * *

"Aren't those Mr. Branson's twin daughters?," Mrs. Drew asked her husband as they turned the corner from the Grantham Arms.

"Where?"

"There, coming down the alley with Mr. Crawley's youngest and some little boy."

"Heavens, it is! And those are Lady Mary's pigs they are riding! We have to catch them, Margie! Lady Mary is going to have my skin for this. Hopelessly devoted to those pigs, she is. Hurry! Oh, I swear, I've locked the fence!," Mr. Drew replied, very much panicked.

"Perhaps the children have opened it?"

"Miss Saoirse would, she loves a good laugh, they say at the big house. Miss Aoife is too sensible for that and Miss Meg too proper," Mr. Drew's voice was hurried, "Perhaps it's that boy. He's the valet's son, I think. He should be ashamed of himself, getting his Lordship's granddaughters into scrapes!"

But none of the Drews' exchange reached the ears of the hunting party quartet as they made their way past the Christmas fair. All four doubled over in laughter, the "sensible" Aoife and the "proper" Meg included, as people drove out of the way, swinging between shocked at the sight of his Lordship's progeny with the  _valet's_  boy racing down the main street atop cross pigs, their beautiful dresses hopelessly covered in mud, and terrified that all three of them, the boy also, have gone absolutely and completely mad.

"Sybbie was right, pretend hunting is much more fun than shooting birds!," Saoirse squealed loudly, practically bouncing on her pig as they gained even more momentum.

"If Aunt Mary gets cross, it's your fault," Aoife shrieked from her own pig, not-so-secretly enjoying the ride.

Saoirse stuck her tongue out at her twin and melted into a puddle of bell-like giggles.

"This is the most fun I've had all winter!," Meg laughed in a most unladylike manner, "The best fun I've had in  _ages_."

"Saoirse, watch out! You're going too fast!," Jack called out from beside Meg, seemingly the only member of the party to preserve an ounce of caution.

Saoirse only laughed and kicked her pig once more, gaining more speed as they turned past Crawley House.

"Hello, Aunt Isobel!," the twins cried in unison as the shocked figure of George and Meg's grandmother emerged from the front door.

"Grandmamma! Hello!," Meg laughed as all four of them came into a sudden and laughing halt, throwing Saoirse off her mount and into a puddle.

She only laughed and laughed when Jack descended from his own mount to help her up.

"Saoirse! Are you alright, my dear?," Aunt Isobel was by her side in a minute.

"It's jolly isn't it, Aunt Isobel?," she continued to laugh and laugh.

"Whatever were you doing?," Aunt Isobel asked, turning to her granddaughter.

"Hunting, Grandmamma," Meg answered, laughing almost as hysterically as her cousin, "It's so much more splendid than Lord Branksome's  _boring_  nephew, isn't it?"

"Grandpapa, Da, and Uncle and Matthew won't let us go with Sybbie and Georgie to the hunt!," Aoife tried to explain but her voice was also drowned in a steady flow of giggles.

"What is all this about?," Aunt Isobel asked Jack, seemingly the only member of the crew who retained an ounce of sanity.

Jack paused, deciding to choose his words carefully. He was afraid of the scolding he would get but much more afraid of the scolding his companions would receive at the hands of Fraulein Schublig and Lady Mary. Surely, Mrs. Crawley would not tell her daughter-in-law about this?

"The girls decided to have their own hunt, Mrs. Crawley," he started, "but the pig business is my fault. It was my idea to pretend the pigs were horses so we could run them around the village!"

"Don't steal  _my_  idea, Jack!," Saoirse called out indignantly from her puddle.

"The pigs were  _my_  idea!," Aoife added, descending from her mount.

" _You_  said the idea would be all  _mine_!," Saoirse accused and with that, all three little girls burst into a fit of cackling laughter.

Without warning, the large, cross pigs that carried the Branson twins, now free of their mistresses, ran, no dashed, past the alley and into a back road before any could react, while the two more docile pigs that carried the youngest Miss Crawley and the youngest Mr. Bates slunk down into the cold earth in lazy resignation.

Their laughs turned into utter silence until the twins' eyes met.

"Uh-oh," both breathed at the same time.

"Mamma will be so angry," Meg stated, otherwise seeming utterly unconcerned.

"It will be all Saoirse's fault."

"I don't care."

And the cousins fell into the earth once more doubling over in their infectious laughter, Aunt Isobel laughing alongside them while Jack watched them already both confused and entranced by the perplexity of womankind at seven.

* * *

 **A/N:** I know that Schublig is a kind of German sausage but it sounded so stern and funny that I couldn't resist.


	6. encore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eighteen years ago, in those short moments before exhaustion and delirium had combined to take over her, she had held her tiny daughter and looked into those great blue eyes for the first time. In those brief moments, she had silently made a promise to the infant whose small hand curled around her finger that she would never be silenced from speaking her mind for fear of ridicule, that no rules or opinions would hinder her from chasing her dreams be it in love or in profession. She had not promised her daughter a life free from want, nor would she have, but she had promised her a life where the world with all its struggles and ugliness but likewise its beauty will be hers for the taking. With the return of health and lucidity in the months that followed, her resolve had only fortified.
> 
> She squeezed her husband's hand and drew support from its warmth.
> 
> "What are you so afraid of, Papa? A woman who understands how her own and how another woman's body works and helping her understand it? Most men clearly don't. I know Sir Philip did not."

**A/N:** So, guess what, I've just gotten Lasik surgery on my eyes and my eyes have found a new bestfriend -- Artificial tears! Which meant hyperventilating in and out of the operating room (my first surgery ever!) and a hatred for all bright lights, but I'm glad to have my vision back and here we are with a new chappie (Yay?) which coincidentally is related to the medical field. Dundundundun.

This scene has been brewing in my mind for some time now but I had dinner with a friend of mine who is in her first year of med school and that changed the context and the story completely. There are a number of doctors and nurses in my family but it has always seemed so normal to me that it never really sunk in what they had gone through in medical and nursing school and the kind of surgeries and cases they go through on a daily basis, so the experiences that my friend shared have been something of a rough awakening (good thing we've moved on to the dessert at this point), so in a way, that inspired this. That's not to say she had gone through what Sybbie has in this chapter (I basically just gave away who this will be about, haha) but listening to her experiences in a way told me why aristocratic families in the 30's would be so opposed to their daughters and granddaughters, viewed to be delicate, entering medical fields. I've only put the information most relevant to the plot here but there you go. I might expand this later to include the more bloody and gritty details.

Thank you so much for your continued support and don't forget to review!

Warning:  **ANGST!**

**Disclaimer:** If DA was mine, Sybil and Matthew would still walk the Yorkshire earth. Also, I'm no medical expert so...

* * *

_encore_

_1938_

Not one element of that night had been forgotten, forgiven perhaps, but never forgotten – never that. After all, how could one forget? The words of an always loving father cutting through her, insults, not only to the man she loves, now her husband ( _that_  had been bad in itself), but to her also – insinuations that she was but a child, that she could not possibly know her own mind, when it was her father who acted every bit the child; the implication that she who never acted on impulse, who never considered anything but until the most minute detail would allow herself to be  _seduced_ , never mind the accusation that the man who stood by her, himself a bastion of honor would degrade himself to  _that_. No, nothing was forgotten and tonight, each memory came back to her in clear detail, more so because each word tonight recalled exactly that night.

That night, she and Tom had weathered every insult, every slur, every threat, and had emerged united. They were only stronger today than they had then and their strength empowered them today. Tonight, as he had that night, her father threw insult after insult, accusation after accusation, only now, none of them made the least impact, except one for tonight was much bigger than them. Tonight they themselves were parents as her father had been that night and as indifferent as they could be to slurs made to them, neither would accept the slightest on their daughter.

"And what, pray, Papa, would you define as decent?," she began, an edge to her voice and her husband's hand in her own, "that Sir Philip you have so raved about?"

"Perhaps you have forgotten that your daughter is a deb, Sybil?," her father stated, casting condescending glances on what he saw as her shameful excuse of a sitting room, the tea Poppy had laid out untouched. What business had he to come bursting into their home, ridiculing the existence they had worked so hard to build and criticizing their daughter's choices?

"And what of it?," her husband retorted, fury equally making itself known.

"I won't expect  _you_  to understand," her father sneered, "that every door in London will be shot in your daughter's face, that the court would turn its nose up at the sight of her."

"Only the doors of  _your_  kind, Lord Grantham," his voice was rising, "And Sybbie has always been the daughter of a journalist and a nurse, never that of an earl. I don't see how that is to make any difference."

Peace had settled within the family over the years – acceptance and forgiveness with it yet, just as talk of war after one that they believed would end all wars had come to spread like wildfire in the buzz that was the streets of London, conflict had a way of reigniting.

"I don't know whether you have yet to realize it, Tom, but the only chance your girls have is because of their mother's blood and with your daughter determined to act as – "

"Papa!," he had gone too far with that. How dare he?! How dare he the careless blue-blood who had plundered her mother's money in speculation, he who had done nothing but lie in his easy chair and admire his estate while his sons-in-law suffered ridicule after ridicule in order to save it, he who had never lain awake at night fearful of what the crisis would do not to him but to his daughters, he who had never ensured his little girls as he tucked them in at night that they could be whoever they wanted to be, that they would be loved and adored whatever that was; How dare he ridicule his granddaughters' father, his daughter's husband and judge reduce his worth to the presence, or lack thereof, of a title?!

"GET OUT!," she bellowed, "GET OUT, PAPA! "

"Sybil, I only meant –,"

"I know exactly what you mean, Papa. It has always been how you have felt about us. But you cannot come bursting into our home, insulting everything we have worked for and making our daughter feel any less a person for wanting to live a useful life different from the idle one you have wanted us all to live!"

Her father loved them, she knew that – he loved her and her girls and over the years he had come to respect her husband, but he did not understand them, he would never understand them, their choices, the life they have lead. This lack of comprehension, tolerated at times likewise flared at times into a fury, an indignation over what he would view as an affront to the life he continues to live, the life he had given her that she so indifferently thrown away. That was what this was about, she knew that. In the daughter who was so like her, not only in looks, but in every single way, her father saw once more in perfect detail the Sybil who stood in the drawing room that night.

But she was never truly part of that world. She was born to it but that was the end of it. Neither was her daughter part of it. The fact that her father could not see that angered her.

"Medicine is hardly a profession for a woman, and to specialize in  _that_  field?! Your mother may no longer see it, but no mother in society will allow her daughter to associate with a girl who tinkers not only with corpses but also  _those_  parts, no suitor will – it is entirely inappropriate!"

"Inappropriate for who? Not for Sybbie, not for us," her husband retorted coldly, challengingly.

Her father ignored that.

"This is what comes of spoiling her! The mad clothes! Letting her run wild! That dance!," his voice was rising again and she thought of her sleeping daughters, "The association with that boy – the – the maid's bastard! I had thought this medicine nonsense had died down when she agreed to join the season even if the juvenile infatuation with that boy had not, then I enter the Lords and the room is abuzz with talk of my eldest granddaughter, the most celebrated deb of the season, taking up Gynecology! "

It was an echo of the words he had told her mother the night she and Tom have told the world of their intended union, words relayed to her by Anna. How little had change over the years – accusations, casting "unwise" decisions as the fault of over-indulgent parents and the follies of youth. She drew a deep breath willing herself to calm down, lest her frustration wake her youngest daughters from their slumber. How different it was, she pondered, how similar and yet how different that she and her husband, just like her parents, had three beautiful and strong-willed girls each of who knew their own mind. "I'm sorry for disobeying you, but I'm interested, I'm political, I have opinions!," she was eighteen when she had told him that, the same age as her daughter was now.

Eighteen years ago, in those short moments before exhaustion and delirium had combined to take over her, she had held her tiny daughter and looked into those great blue eyes for the first time. In those brief moments, she had silently made a promise to the infant whose small hand curled around her finger that she would never be silenced from speaking her mind for fear of ridicule, that no rules or opinions would hinder her from chasing her dreams be it in love or in profession. She had not promised her daughter a life free from want, nor would she have, but she had promised her a life where the world with all its struggles and ugliness but likewise its beauty will be hers for the taking. With the return of health and lucidity in the months that followed, her resolve had only fortified.

She squeezed her husband's hand and drew support from its warmth.

"What are you so afraid of, Papa? A woman who understands how her own and how another woman's body works and helping her understand it? Most men clearly don't. I know Sir Philip did not."

"There is no need for indecency, Sybil."

She scoffed at that.

"What indecency is there in it, Papa?"

"Toying with corpses as she had played with her dolls before she becomes exposed to  _that_ , a young woman, so full of life and grace, ensconced in a laboratory looking death in the face – I have been to a war, Sybil. I have seen what death looks like and it has no place in the presence of my granddaughter! I will not – cannot allow it!"

Her father meant well, she knew that and so did her husband. She knew it from the way his hand squeezed her own and the way his shoulders dropped the slightest. Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, in his outburst of decency and propriety, as critical as those points were in his world, had also come here to protect his granddaughter's innocence. Her own mother had sought to do that for her when she had told them she had wanted to become a nurse. But ignorance is not the synonym of innocence. How wrong her mother had been then. How wrong her father was now.

"I have seen death too, Papa. I've looked at its face and felt its cold hand. I can even tell you what death looks like – death is seeing my husband weep and hearing my daughter's cries and listening to a voice that repeatedly tells me to let go! Death is the fear that grips me whenever I remember how close I had come to not sleeping next to Tom at night, to not rocking our girls to sleep, to not supervising their lessons before dinner, to not watching them grow, to being buried below the cold ground with nothing but the earth for company! I have met death, Papa! Surely you cannot forget that I have, since it was  _you_  who so enthusiastically believed that nothing was wrong!"

Beside her, her husband went completely still as he was wont to do when confronted with memories of the night and what could have happened, his hand trembled in hers. Before her, her father blanched. He was struck dumb. That was cruel, she knew that. Her words had been cruel and perhaps unwarranted especially after the long years he had repented for it, but for her daughter's sake she was prepared to be savage, thankful only that her eldest daughter was not there to witness the savagery. She prayed that dinner at Eaton Square would last the duration of the confrontation.

She knew that her daughter knew her own mind and could very well fight her own battles but she had from the beginning been Grandpapa's little darling and she knew, felt, how painfully her Grandpapa's disapproval had sliced through her. Sybbie was her baby, the very first, and recognizing the strength her daughter possessed could not stop her from wanting to be the one to fight her baby's battles if only to spare her the pain. It was an instinct that her own mother had told her would never go away.

"With all due respect, Lord Grantham," her husband said from beside her, his voice still carrying the strain of memory's onslaught, "it is not your place to decide the matter. Sybbie is our daughter, not yours and she will enter medical school whatever your opinion is about it."

"Must you be so disagreeable, Papa?," she supplemented, "Surely you cannot be so blind to her as you were to me! Sybbie has always had an aptitude for medicine, even Doctor Clarkson is awed by the accuracy of her diagnoses, and that without previous training! Mamma was delighted when she heard the news, Mary and Matthew too, why could you not accept that this makes her happy and be proud of her for it? Can't you see, Papa, how this hurts her?" ("Just as you have hurt me, Papa," she thought)

"But Gynecology?!," he had regained his voice, "Both of you insist that it is not indecent, both of you choose to disregard what will be said, but have either of you even considered how it would affect her? We've almost lost you that day, Sybil. We've almost lost Sybbie too. It is a bloody miracle that you both are here today!" He drew a deep breath. "If a mother were to die in the manner you almost had, Sybil, if a father were widowed in the manner you almost had been, Tom, if a child were to be born dead as your brother had…" She noted there were tears in her father's eyes. "Sybbie has always felt so keenly for others, you know that. You want to protect her but if she played witness to the events that could have taken place during her birth, would you be able to comfort her, do you think, from  _that_?"

Unbeknownst to their first born, they had taken notice of the intensity of her clinging, of the long silences, of the tantrums that have not taken place since early childhood, of the sad, far-off look in her normally alert and sparkling eyes, in the months leading to their twin daughters' birth. They understood that she knew something that she should not (but they never knew it was  _that_ ), but the fears and anxieties of the present had forced them to put aside concern until the events should warrant it. The happy conclusion that followed then effaced all the terrors of the past months and like magic, the concerns have been forgotten. Little did they know that their daughter had cried herself to sleep in her grandfather's arms, knowledgeable of the events of her birth and trembling with fear lest the toxemia of yesterday should not spare her mother again. In all truth, the lack of this understanding made it easy for them to be blind to that aspect of her father's concern and cast all opposition to his aristocratic nonsense.

"No. Nothing could comfort me from that _,_ Grandpapa. Nothing ever will."

All three had turned to the sound of the voice, to her daughter, standing in the open door, alabaster cheeks pink from the cold. George stood strong behind her, her most loyal ally since the days of hurricanes in the nursery. Clearly, the dinner in Eaton Square has since been over. The children, not really children any longer, closed the door behind them and eased themselves into the seats by the window, their place since childhood. Of all her family, it was her nephew who from the beginning was most comfortable in her home.

"Sybbie –," she and her husband begun.

Realization dawned on them like a dark cloud. Their daughter knew. Their baby who they had sought to protect from the horrors of her birth knew  _all_  of it – that was the reason behind it all. That was the reason why her father, already opposed to a career in medicine, had attacked Gynecology in particular.

"Do you remember, Grandpapa, what you told me that night?" their daughter's voice was strained.

The room was bathed in absolute silence save for the sound of her and Tom's heavy breathing. They wanted to put their arms around their baby and kiss away the pain, just as they had done when she had fallen from her bicycle and scraped her knees in Regent's Park so long ago. In some corner of their minds, they registered that George, looking at his shoes, had also known. Tears were flowing down her father's cheeks as he nodded.

"You told me that it was not my fault, that none of it was," their daughter continued, "but it still felt that way and it felt that way even when Uncle Matthew told me that Mamma and the girls were alright. Sometimes I remember, even when we are all happy and together, and I feel that way again."

"Sybbie, darling –," her heart broke into a million pieces. She wanted to reassure her daughter that it was never her fault, even when in the moment when they had feared all was lost, it was never Sybbie's fault, never. But her daughter had already continued on.

"I go with Mamma to the hospital. I volunteer and I see mothers die and I see little girls who are to grow up without mothers and I see fathers who just stare in the distance and act as if they cannot hear their children's cries," tears were now flowing down from her beautiful eyes, "then I remember how close we had come to losing Mamma, how close Aoife, Saoirse, and I have come to becoming those little girls. You told me, Grandpapa, that that was the state Da was in, Granny too, before Mamma woke up. Grandpapa, those families could have easily been us!"

Her nephew wound his arms around her daughter, allowing her to cry into his chest, just as he had always done since they were little children. She did not hear what he whispered to her curls, but she knew they were words of comfort.

"I know my heart would break every time I witness another family that could not be spared, I know that I cannot save them all, but if there was any chance, however small, that I could spare a little girl from feeling how I felt, of giving her back her mother, of giving her the chance to grow up with both her parents, of protecting them all from ignorance…Grandpapa, please. Please. Can't you see?"

Pride mingled with heartbreak in her chest and combined so exponentially that she felt it would explode. Just like a phoenix, her daughter had risen from the ashes of adversity and used that as her weapon. She had always been strong, even as a little girl, and her sense of justice was one that whatever privilege her grandparents handed her could never take away. She so felt for others that her adversity became her own. She fought for her beliefs to the very end. Mrs. Sybil Branson was a proud woman, not by the standards of the world her parents lived in, but she was proud of the life she and her husband had built, she was proud that her daughters had grown to be wonderful young ladies unencumbered by the weight of privilege, and at this moment, her heart burst with pride at the amazing person her firstborn had grown up to be. She turned to her husband and from the way his eyes shone, she knew he felt the same.

The sobs that have now wracked her father's strong frame, had turned into audible cries, but the steps he took towards her daughter were lithe, barely heard. Sybbie had removed herself from her cousin's arms and threw herself to her grandfather's. He smoothed her curls as she, Tom, and George watched the weeping pair, transfixed. After many minutes, her father raised his head, his voice remained wracked with tears, but a determined understanding now painted it.

"I do, Sybbie. I do see and I am so sorry. So, so sorry."

 


	7. cauchemar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Mamma crying," her daughter persisted, "Mamma sad."
> 
> "Sybil?" her husband's voice called out. Sleep had colored his voice but concern had brought to it alertness, "Love, what's wrong? Was it something at the hospital?"
> 
> She nodded and he reached across their daughter, mindful of the sleeping child on his chest, to cup her face and swipe at her tears with his thumb. Try as she might they persisted in falling, releasing the emotion that last night's exhaustion had hindered, and she found herself leaning into his palm, feeling its warmth and from it drawing strength. He was here and so was she, as were all their girls. They were alright, they were safe, they were alive.
> 
> "Love, do you want me to –?" he continued, motioning to the slumbering children sprawled around them and the one awake whose great blue eyes shone with worry.
> 
> "No. I want them here," she answered. She needed them here with her, she needed all of them here with her now – Tom and Sybbie and Aoife and Saoirse. As she felt her heart break, she wanted and needed her family to mend it anew.

**A/N:** I haven't updated lately, I know and I'm so, so, so incredibly sorry. The last few weeks have been an emotional, physical, and mental roller coaster and I've barely had the time to stop and breathe and I'm glad of finally finding the time to post this.

I wanted to join the S/T Valentine's Fic Exchange tbh, but I kept putting off signing up as an incentive to finish x number of school work until, next thing I know, the deadline had passed and life has taken over (again) but I do want to contribute something to the fandom this Valentine's even if it is a little late and fortunately, I found this among my drafts which seemed apt enough for the occassion even if I cannot promise you that this will be a fluffy read. Still, I really hope you enjoy it.

Lastly, to whoever nominated me for the Highclere Awards, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I'm so new to writing fanfiction and I'm still feeling my way through so I was not expecting that nomination at all and I really don't know what to say except that I am so, so thankful, really and I hope this chapter will prove worthy of the honor. Please don't forget to review! =D

P.S. Who has seen  _Winter's Tale_  already? Dragged the bestfriend (who has yet to watch Downton Abbey) the day before Valentine's and I need DA people to fangirl over it with ;D. My bestfriend was a good sport though and I had someone to dissect the movie over with even if we missed the first few minutes.

**Disclaimer:** If DA were mine, Sybil and Matthew would still walk the Yorkshire earth.

* * *

_1833_

She felt pain.

Her head pounded, her abdomen constricted, her back ached, her feet swelled, her whole being had been engulfed so completely by it that she was pain and pain was her.

She saw black.

Only black.

The blackness stretched out for miles and miles and found its end only in eternity.

Voices swam around her, unseen and imploring. They were voices that wept, that bespoke of hearts in the process of breaking – cracked, helpless, pleading. They were voices she knew and voices she loved, chorused in a requiem more tragic than any Mozart could have composed. There were two that had stood out – one was of ebony curls and blue eyes similar to her own; this voice evoked the memory of warm, cradling arms and lullabies, of tingling laughs in the nursery and proud smiles in a Mayfair ballroom. The second was of straight blond locks and Irish blue eyes; its brogue recalled lips that tasted of love and passion, and a broad chest upon which her cheek rested on and slumbered. Even now she felt the caresses of blackened fingers, once by the oil of a motor, more recently by the print of newspapers.

She searched for them in the darkness, sought their voices in the great infinity – for what? To assure them perhaps, to return to them most probably – But it was all in vain. The world in its entirety was the blackest pain.

Then, a cry.

It was a new voice, soft, and mewling. It was a cry different from the other cries that surrounded it. It was not a cry of grief but of urgency, a plead for help.

She felt a small yet warm weight in her arms that squirmed and opened and closed blue, blue eyes. Behind her, she felt warm strength; hands that held her own as she carried the bundle. The memory's fuzziness faded and gave way to sharp detail. Her mind was clear and her body strong. She felt pride. She felt warmth and happiness and a love so strong she felt as if her chest might burst with its intensity.  _"A hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having."_  Oh, how right he had been!

The darkness had collapsed around her to give way to light. The orange glow of her childhood bedroom, their bedroom now, (or was it their bedroom then?) bathed them all. Her infant daughter's cries increased in volume and urgency. Why had no one gone to her? Why had  _she_  not gone to her?

"Sybbie – ,"

Why had she thought that? How had she known that? She had yet to have a name. From Dublin to Downton they had discussed and argued and teased, but their daughter still did not have a name. And yet, she did. Her daughter was called Sybbie, the second Sybil, she did not know how but she knew with certainty that she was that.

"Sybbie," she tried again but no sound came out.

"Tom," she tried again. She felt pain, of the emotional sort this time, emanate from within her chest. She felt desperation. She wanted to cry but she could not. She saw and heard everything in perfect detail, watched and heard them weep and plead, heard her baby cry, yet her lids remained shut and her body stayed still and cold.

No sound left her cold lips.

"Tom! I'm here darling! I'm just here, please!" her mind cried in desperation, "Sybbie, Mamma is coming, I promise! Aoife, Saoirse, don't cry. Mamma is here!"

More memories flooded her mind – of her own blue eyes and ebony locks, straightened in a tiny head that resembled her husband's in shape and structure, alabaster skin like her own. A second little girl was crying in her arms and then she was gone.

"No!" she tried to cry, "Aoife! Where has my baby gone?"

A third little girl was in her arms, warm and mewling, different from the last and yet physically so identical. In the same instant, she too was gone.

"Saoirse! Tom, where are you? I'm here, Tom! I'm here! Sybbie! Aoife! Saoirse! Where have my babies gone? Where is my husband? Where are my girls?!"

Their voices began to fade – Tom's and Sybbie's and Aoife's and Saoirse's, only her own thoughts remained. She was once again plunged into darkness, now more sinister and penetrating. She tried running but there was nowhere to run, there were no faces to chase, no voices to follow. The pain was gone now. It was only her and the nothingness.

"Mamma! Mamma!"

She felt pressure on her stomach. Not painful exactly, but a weight, a mass that proved something that existed was atop it. Her lids felt light. She had felt darkness because they were shut. She was no longer watching her lifeless body, she  _was_  her body.

"Mamma! Mam-mah!" the small voice was insistent. The small voice jumped atop her stomach and attempted to shake her shoulders in an effort to rouse her.

Blue eyes identical to her own were the first to meet her sight and her smile.

"Goo' mowning, Mamma! Aoife sleep in Mamma and Da's room! Sybbie and Saoirse too!" her daughter lisped, wearing a grin the replica of her husband's. Aoife. The tone of her daughter's voice told her that the little body that sing-songed so early in the morning was the elder twin and not her youngest daughter; it was a tone that reminded her at times of her husband and at times of her eldest sister, it was a tone that wanted to be heard and be taken seriously, one that seemed to insist that what she had to say was worth listening to, even if she was only a toddler; perhaps her daughter was like her as well in that aspect.

"Good morning, darling," she replied, pressing a kiss to her daughter's fine, ebony locks as she breathed in her sweet, baby scent. She still reeled from the nightmare and the tragedy in the hospital that was perhaps the culprit for bringing the nightmare about. The fear of the loss of her baby's warm weight in her arms was still so acute that she drew her child closer and kissed every inch of the small face whose blue eyes watched her with concern."Good morning my little Aoife."

The early light of a London day poured into the bedroom and bathed her and her tiny daughter in it, as it had bathed the room's other occupants. Her husband snored softly on the bed's other end –  _her_  side under normal circumstances, which he had shamelessly chosen to occupy every time she took the night shift at the hospital – still oblivious to the world, the younger half of their twin daughters cuddled to his chest. Their firstborn lay asleep in the space between them, now thirteen and no longer so little but still with old Catherine clutched to her chest. The sight brought her heart close to bursting. Oh, how she had lost them all in that nightmare! How she had ran after their voices, how she had called for them all in vain, and yet here they all were, safe and beside her.

She felt warm tears slide down her cheeks.

"Mamma sad?" her daughter asked, concern colored her toddler's voice, concern that should not be there yet, especially in such a young child.

"No, darling," she kissed her daughter's head again, "Mamma is not sad. Mamma's Aoife is here, why would Mamma be sad?"

* * *

The girl's name was Diana Cowper.

Sybil had recognized her not long after she had put down the receiver after letting Tom know that an emergency had necessitated the need of her in the night shift.

She was the youngest of Lord Stockbridge's granddaughters. Her father was the heir to a marquisate in Berkshire. A lifetime ago during her first and only season, Sybil had been presented to their majesties alongside Diana's sister Cornelia. Diana had been but a small child then, closer in age to the twins than to Sybbie. Sybil had remembered her as an impish child, a playful and willful sprite whose auburn locks were in a constant state of disarray as she charmed dozens of onlookers in various receptions, she was the antithesis to her cold and stately sister.

Diana could not have been more than seventeen now, she was still a child in so many ways and yet –.

It was the maid who had answered her questions and who had shared so much more. Lady Stockbridge, the girl's grandmother who had accompanied her had already become an utter mess. She was a contemporary of Sybil's grandmother, stately and composed, until the hysteria of that day had rendered her its paradox, that is. If she had recognized Lord Grantham's youngest daughter, she showed no inkling of it at the moment and neither did Sybil care; " _I won't be received at London, I won't be welcome at court. How do I make you understand? I couldn't care less,"_ she had told her father once and never had she looked back – that world was a different life altogether and never had she hankered for its return. From the very start, the grandmother amidst her panic had ordered the maid to tell the nurse the unfortunate story.

The cook's boy was the father, the maid had related. No, he was not under Lord Stockbridge's employ but he had grown up in the estate alongside Miss Diana and their friendship, greatly disapproved of, had blossomed into love. Lady Burke, the Miss Cornelia of yesteryears, had suspected of the affair and had sought to stop it by bringing some more suitable bachelor from London and Miss Diana and the boy, a lad named John, had wanted to run off to elope but they were underage and the economic depression had made it impossible for John to find employment. They had surrendered to it because they had believed it the only means to be together. No was her answer to a question Sybil had posed, they had not known that methods were available to prevent a pregnancy, such topics were prohibited under Lord Stockbridge's roof. Perhaps if they had known that, the discovery could have been thwarted. The boy had been arrested for rape under Lord Stockbridge's orders when the pregnancy had been known and the heartbroken Miss Diana was packed off to Mayfair to prevent talk in the county.

Geneva would have been a better option but it would prove too heavy a burden on the estate's finances. As it was, the girl was to be sent there with her grandmother for the last two months and the baby be given to some childless couple. It seems however that Sir Philip, the doctor who had been sent for and valued for his discretion, had miscalculated. The labour had begun in the wee hours of the morning, two months earlier than had been anticipated, "Miss Diana had always been small," the maid explained. Lord Stockbridge had refused to send for the doctor who lived close by and he had refused to send the girl to a hospital nearby, fearing the consequences should word get out. It had taken great effort from the part of Lady Stockbridge to convince her husband to allow their granddaughter to be brought to the hospital they were in now, "Far away enough to have no one of their acquaintance to spread the word, but middle class enough to ensure the quality of the services and the facilities".

"'Something has gone wrong, Henry! The headaches and the back pains –,' Lady Stockbridge said," the maid repeated, "'Please, Henry! Have pity on Di, have pity on me, please! This is –,"

"Toxemia," Sybil finished. She had known that from the beginning, known it from the moment the child had cried out in pain, begging them to do something, anything, to take away the pounding in her head, the pressure in her abdomen.

That was the reason Doctor Johnson had asked her to take the night shift. The situation was bad, perhaps if the girl had been brought earlier – but if there was the slightest chance mother and child could be spared, then perhaps the presence of a nurse who had survived the sinister condition could make all the difference.

But it did not, in the end it did not spare her or her child. Miss Diana Cowper, aged no older than seventeen, Lord Stockbridge's youngest granddaughter, seized to death an hour later before she could deliver. The child, a blue baby girl they had tried to save through a cesarean had already been dead. Two young lives, needlessly taken away by pride, sacrificed to the hypocritical values of the world she had once been part of.

"You're Lady Sybil Crawley, aren't you? The one who married the chauffeur," Lady Stockbridge had asked Sybil's retreating figure some time later, the end of hysteria giving way to the stately calm behind which she had hidden her grief.

"Mrs. Branson now, but yes, my husband was once employed as a chauffeur at Downton. He's a celebrated journalist now," Sybil had replied proudly, icily.

"And you have a daughter, I hear?"

"Three. One aged thirteen and twins aged two."

"I see. I recognized you from the start, you know. And I'm aware that you had toxemia as well. Your grandmother had written to me when Cornelia was pregnant, you see, she had warned me against that Sir Philip, told me how his pride and miscalculations had almost cost you your life. Henry refused to be swayed. He valued Sir Philip's discretion more, was willing to sacrifice Di to it, I believe. Well, you got lucky, I suppose," Lady Stockbridge had finished, calm still hiding her grief.

But Sybil was not party to such horrid and unfeeling calm, not on such a night that recalled so freshly the horrors of a similar night thirteen years past. In no way was the hospital a stranger to toxemia, neither was tonight the first she had seen a mother and a child lost to it, but only tonight had the mother been so young, only tonight had she seen a mother lost before she could have been saved through the folly of pride and ignorance. In all the thirteen years that had followed that night, only tonight had she watched a mother die in circumstances so similar to her own and had been reminded that it could very well have been her.

Exhaustion burst from her as she opened the door into the bedroom she shared with her husband – both physical and emotional. There he was, darling Tom whose exhaustion at work had likely been aggravated by the twin's squabbles, lying fast asleep on her side of the bed. On his chest lay one of their twin daughters, another at his waist – how small they both still were! And how identical they looked in sleep! At Tom's side slept their eldest, Catherine at her chest.

Their girls had their own rooms, Sybbie down the hall and the twins in the spare room that had since become transformed into a nursery. It was the thunderstorm, she presumed, one of those types that aggravated the frequent London showers. Nonetheless, she could not find it in her heart to mind, she was thankful, really, after such a night, to find their three darling girls squeezed between her and Tom. Tears wouldn't come much as she had wanted them to and she climbed in next to her daughter.

Fatigue claimed her body and memories claimed her dreams, thrusting her into an inferno that she won't be roused from until the sun claimed the London sky from stormy clouds and inky night.

* * *

"Mamma crying," her daughter persisted, "Mamma sad."

"Sybil?" her husband's voice called out. Sleep had colored his voice but concern had brought to it alertness, "Love, what's wrong? Was it something at the hospital?"

She nodded and he reached across their daughter, mindful of the sleeping child on his chest, to cup her face and swipe at her tears with his thumb. Try as she might they persisted in falling, releasing the emotion that last night's exhaustion had hindered, and she found herself leaning into his palm, feeling its warmth and from it drawing strength. He was here and so was she, as were all their girls. They were alright, they were safe, they were alive.

"Love, do you want me to –?" he continued, motioning to the slumbering children sprawled around them and the one awake whose great blue eyes shone with worry.

"No. I want them here," she answered. She needed them here with her, she needed all of them here with her now – Tom and Sybbie and Aoife and Saoirse. As she felt her heart break, she wanted and needed her family to mend it anew.

She thought of the mother who had been lost that night and the little girl who had also been taken. She thought of the boy in a cell somewhere in Berkshire, not widowed, not legally at least, but who had suffered a double lost. In a twisted fashion it echoed the darkness of her dream and its hopelessness. It had not been her that night but thirteen years ago, two years ago even, yet how easily it could have been. She looked at each of her daughters, innocence still marking their features, but they were growing fast. Sybbie was thirteen, a mere four years younger than Diana Cowper had been. She still held old Catherine close to her heart, but how soon before a young man took that place? How long before the twins followed suit? They were strong and stubborn and passionate, all three of them – had she acceded to her parents' wishes, had she not stood her ground and defended heart and mind, was that the ending her girls would have awaited?

"Sybil?" her husband asked again.

"I need them here, Tom. I need all of you here, please."

Just as he had mere minutes ago, she had reached across to him, cupping his face in her palm, drawing him to her, but it was his mouth she sought with her own. Seeing was not enough, she needed to know he was here, not in front of a burning castle in Ireland, not in a jail cell in Berkshire.

_He is here_ , she told herself as their lips met, warm and sweet and desperate. She said a silent prayer in reconnaissance for her fortunes.  _He is here and he is Tom and I am Sybil. We are alive, our girls are alive. We are together and we are well_.

" _Anocht_ , _*"_ she promised against his lips, "Now, I just need to be with all of you."

He was not without such nightmares, she had played witnessed to that as she held him and allowed him to weep into her shoulder and implore her many nights after Sybbie's birth and again many nights before their twins were born. She was his confidant and her arms were those he sought comfort in during those long nights. Tonight their roles would be reversed. Tonight she will cry into his chest and she will tell him of the girl who had died, of the girl and boy they could easily have become had their situation been the slightest bit of different – if they had been younger, if they had not been so brave, if chance had not been so kind. She would tell him of the dream that had haunted her – of a world without him, of a world without their girls, and he would stroke her hair and whisper sweet nothings and she will fall asleep in his arms.

Soon, Sybbie would wake and Saoirse too. Three daughters will be fed and one sent to school, they themselves had work days to attend to. But tonight, they will weep together and find comfort in each other.

" _Anocht,_ " she repeated. "I love you, Tom. So, so much."

Tears continued to flow as one hand entwined with his and another held their second daughter, clutching her even closer to her chest.

"Mamma loves you, Aoife. Sybbie and Saoirse too," the child had never shied away from their kisses and she found comfort in the fact.

"Love you too, Mamma."

Yes, tonight she will weep again but he will be there to comfort here. But her hand in his, their girls spread between them, for now, this was enough.

* * *

**A/N:** _Anocht -_ Tonight; I used Google Translate for this so please correct me if I'm wrong.


	8. jamais

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear, God, she implored, Please, God. I'm begging you, please. Not Sybil, please, not Sybil. She's only twenty-four. She's a wife. She's going to be a mother. She's going to change the world.
> 
> They said that one's life flashes before one's eyes before death and just like that she saw she and her sister play before her – a shared childhood, early adolescence, more recent memories spanning the last ten years – "She's just showing off, she'll be on about the vote in a minute," "What could have possibly possessed you to wear trousers, Sybil?!" rolling her eyes at her sister's politics, her nursing, the man she loved, and the worst of it all, the greatest crime – "Look at them. Both with their husbands. Sybil pregnant. Mary probably pregnant…Oh just go. I mean it, go!"
> 
> God, I'm begging you. Please, God, please. Don't take her. Don't take my baby sister. Not before I can set things right. Not before she knows I did not mean a word of it.

**A/N:** If you remember, in Lux Facta Est, when Robert confesses to Sybbie that what happened the night she was born was entirely his fault, he told her that Edith was the one who occupied herself with Baby Sybbie while the rest of the family fretted over Sybil. Well, I know I usually write from the PoV of the members of the Branson family but I felt that this was an aspect of Lux Facta Est that I did not explore enough. Also, when I was watching the Season 3 special features on DVD, the segment on Edith's wedding made me sad and it really sunk in how hard it must be for her to watch her sisters lead such fulfilled lives while she remains tied to her parents, feeling underappreciated and unloved. Taking that from the context of Lux Facta Est, it's just so tragic in a way. As always, the Bransons will feature here largely and will play very important roles but the PoV will be Edith's.

**A/N 2:** We all know Mary's middle name is Josephine. Apparently, according to Edith and Anthony's wedding program which were very visible in the feature, Josephine is also Edith's middle name!

Warning: ANGST!

Don't forget the reviews, they would make my exhausted heart and overused brain (thank you, Public Policy!) happy!

**Disclaimer:** If Downton Abbey were mine, Matthew and Sybil will still walk the Yorkshire earth.

* * *

_1920_

The room was demonstrative of all the sweetness of childhood – the soft floral of the wallpaper, the dolls that once again lined the shelves, the white crib that was adorned by a solitary plush mouse; the mouse was her sister's darling in childhood,  _Sybil's mouse_ , just as there was  _Mary's dog_  (there had never been an  _Edith's special toy_  for one reason or another and she found herself wondering why that was); it continued to amaze her to no end how her mother had managed to extract the toy from some unknown corner in the attic and bestow on her eldest granddaughter her youngest daughter's last loved toy.

It was symbolic, she thought, that the plush mouse be shared between mother and daughter. After all, the last baby the nursery had held was her baby sister, and now here was her baby niece, the child of that very baby sister, succeeding her mother twenty-odd years later (another baby would have filled the interim, the baby brother of six years ago, her's and Mary's and Sybil's, Sybbie's uncle – none of them have forgotten but for Mamma's sake, only twice have they dared to speak of him).

She was sitting on the rocking chair, reading a book by the soft glow of the lamp, when her niece's coos, demanding attention, drove her to lift the child out of her crib and cuddle the wee thing to her chest.

"Awake again? I hope you didn't find sleep too boring?" she laughed, as she watched the great, blue eyes and impossibly long lashes roam the room's tiny space.

The baby's answer was a coo.

"I suppose I'll take that as a yes, Miss Sybbie."

She was a little beauty, no doubt of that, this tiny Miss Sybbie Branson. After all, how could she be but? Her hair was blonde like Edith's Irish brother-in-law and her eyes were the same shade of blue as his, but everything else spoke of Edith's youngest sister – the thick curling hair, the rosebud mouth, the alabaster skin, even the stubbornness, already apparent at some weeks old, was entirely that of the older Sybil.

She found herself admitting sometimes that if she concentrated hard enough, she would find herself as she was more than twenty-four years ago, three-years old, a ribbon in her hair, sneaking a peek at her new baby sister before Mary awoke and indignantly screeched at her to stop bothering the poor baby.

"Mamma says we are to be gentle with her," four-year old Mary would say, while her glare told little Edith that whatever she was doing did not constitute being gentle in her older sister's world.

"I'm only watching her!" Edith would indignantly retort.

"Well, if she wakes up and cries, it would be your fault! Then Fraulein Kelder can give you a spanking for bothering Sybil!" Mary would huff.

The truth was, the three-year old Edith of years past was very much jealous of Baby Sybil. Even as Edith toddled and struggled to form words and sentences that made sense, she was old enough to recognize that her sister was beautiful and would grow up to be even more so; "My beauty and my baby," Mamma would often remark; Granny, critical and severe Granny, would smile over the fact that the baby will have her pick among the best of the land, will be the most celebrated debutante of the season. They closed their ears to the remarks in London and in the county of what a pity it was that Lord Grantham's second daughter was so plain, so unremarkable, "She'd have a hard time of it, that second one, what with such lovely sisters."

But Sybil was more than a beauty, much more than that. She was also a free spirit. She was sweet and so affected by the tribulations of others but she was also stubborn and determined. By the time their baby sister was seven both she and Mary knew that she would not be like the other girls in their world. And yet, Mary adored her – she adored, praised, and doted on Sybil to the same extent she belittled and patronized over Edith. Sybil was independent, which of course triggered in Edith a fear that had rendered her senseless and in Mary a protectiveness that was to all of them unknown. That was another thing Edith envied her sister – the way she could so easily sprout wings and fly away from the safety of all they had been raised on: fighting for the vote, marrying the chauffeur, moving to the chaos of Dublin – while good, reliable Edith, who fearfully clung to every single thing was forever punished for it.

But today was 1920, not 1895. Lady Edith Crawley was twenty-eight, not three-years old. The baby in her arms was Sybil, that much was true, but she was a different Sybil – so similar and yet different – and even as she knew that the little girl would grow up to be so much like her mother, just as beautiful, just as independent, somehow she could not bring herself to feel anything but love and pride for this wee niece.

She pressed a kiss to her niece's brow and the door opened, flooding the room with the greater amount of light that filled the hall.

"Is she sleeping?" her brother-in-law, her niece's father, asked as he stepped inside.

"She had just woken," she answered as he took the baby from her arms and responded to her mewling sounds with his own coos.

"Sybil had also just woken and already she's complaining that she hasn't seen her miniature all day," he laughed, pressing a kiss to his daughter's hair, already curling as Sybil's own had at that age.

"There hasn't been any – " the word  _seizures_  hang in the air, chilling them both to the bone. She knew that he understood what she had meant.

"No. Not today, thank God," he shook his head, but fear still lingered in his voice, lingered as it had since that night five weeks ago, the night they had feared her sister, his wife, Sybbie's mother, their Sybil, was forever lost to them.

"Well, we best be off," he said, before anxiety had the chance to settle again between them, "I'll be damned if I kept Sybil waiting. Thank you, Edith."

She watched her niece disappear round the corridor that led to her mother's room, echoes of her brother-in-law's, "Come darling, let's go see Mamma," reaching the nursery's confines. She reached for her book before she herself headed out for her own room. With one last glance at the nursery, she put out the lamp's light – it felt empty, just as empty as her arms now felt.

* * *

Never in her life had she prayed harder than she had that night – and many nights that had followed.

That scream pierced through her heart and chilled her to the bone. Her parents were still fighting – screaming, pleading, imploring. Her brother-in-law was still kept in the dark. Her sister – oh, God – her baby sister. Her baby sister, the beautiful, beautiful, wee thing whose eyes of azure already searched for adventures, for stances and opinions – surely, surely it could not be, she who was so strong, so brave, so sure of what she wanted, it could not be this pitiful woman crying out in pain, screaming and delirious.

Dear, God, she implored, Please, God. I'm begging you, please. Not Sybil, please, not Sybil. She's only twenty-four. She's a wife. She's going to be a mother. She's going to change the world.

They said that one's life flashes before one's eyes before death and just like that she saw she and her sister play before her – a shared childhood, early adolescence, more recent memories spanning the last ten years – "She's just showing off, she'll be on about the vote in a minute," "What could have possibly possessed you to wear  _trousers_ , Sybil?!" rolling her eyes at her sister's politics, her nursing, the man she loved, and the worst of it all, the greatest crime – "Look at them. Both with their husbands. Sybil pregnant. Mary probably pregnant…Oh just go. I mean it, go!"

She was bitter. She was angry. Mary, perfect Mary who had always done everything correctly, who had married the heir, who would soon bear an heir, who would become a countess, and Sybil, free-spirited Sybil who had thrown away her life and her title, who had married the chauffeur and had run off to Dublin, who was to be rewarded for it with her own happy family. Her sisters were entering a new world together, hand-in-hand, leaving her, the spinster, alone in the old. She was envious and she wanted to be cruel – but none of it was the fault of her sisters, not one bit – it was the world's cruel way of playing with her and neither of her sisters deserved to be punished for it.

God, I'm begging you. Please, God, please. Don't take her. Don't take my baby sister. Not before I can set things right. Not before she knows I did not mean a word of it.

They feared they had lost her that night, and when she had returned to them, it was precariously. Weeks after, they still feared she would be lost. Tom never left her bedside, fearing what he would find when he returned. Mamma also kept vigil, almost to the same extent as Tom, only leaving to discuss at length her baby's condition with Doctor Clarkson (Once, Mamma cared for her that way too. She was seven-years old and she had Scarlet Fever. Mary and Sybil were sent to Aunt Rosamund's in London and it was the only time she could recall that she did not have to share her mother). Never had Sybil's bedroom been so occupied, so busy, since that night – Mary employed herself at Mamma's service and Matthew at Tom's – it was so much easier to keep busy than to dwell on what might happen.

And her niece, the poor, wee thing who did not see her mother since that night. Her father had named her Sybil after her mother, the mother that she may very well lose – Sybil, because he, no, all of them, really, needed this tiny Sybil to hold on to should the older Sybil –. It was to her sister's daughter that she devoted herself to whole-heartedly.

Mamma refused to speak to Papa, blamed him for what had happened to Sybil ("I won't lose another child, Robert," she had heard Mamma tell him in their room one night, acidly, in a tone that was meant to hurt, to pierce, "I will not have my baby in the cold, dark ground so please let me be before you do any more damage!"). Granny and Mary fretted – well, never mind, she thought, let Granny deal with a crisis without her help for once. Papa and Matthew argued over the running of the estate, well that's their affair. Her niece in her arms, those wide blue eyes and impossibly tiny limbs, it was easy to forget the world, to let bitterness and fear slip away – Anthony Strallan, her father's criticism of her writing, her baby sister even.

The family held its breath for few weeks more – then, they did not know when exactly, but things bettered. Sybil continued to seize but less severely, less frequently; Matthew had finally convinced Tom to step outside for brief moments, to breathe the fresh air, during which the brothers-in-law would discuss the estate's affairs while Mamma would adore her youngest daughter as if she was a baby once more before proceeding to the nursery to cuddle her very first grandchild; Sybbie had sometimes even left the nursery's confines for brief visits to her adoring, if still frail, Mamma; Edith's own Mamma remained cold to her Papa, who removed himself like the plague from his youngest daughter's room and from the nursery but loitered everywhere else – things were not perfect but they were improving. Soon enough, the family breathed more easily.

In the mornings before she opened her eyes, Edith said a quiet prayer, thanking God for her sister before rushing to the nursery to tell her little niece that her Mamma will be well soon. She rejoiced with the family, wore a smile on good days and felt more and more confident that her baby sister will make it through. In the dead of night however, when the sun brought with it reason and activity, how easy it was, so easy, for that old sentiment called jealousy to sink in again.

* * *

"Would you like to spend tonight with Mamma and Da, my darling? My big, big girl!"

Her brother-in-law stood by the rocking chair gazing lovingly, adoringly at something below his line of sight – the two Sybils – her sister, her frail baby sister who cuddled and kissed her daughter's curls, murmuring words of sweet nonsense, and her niece who cooed and smiled (her first smiles!) at her Mamma endlessly, adoringly.

Her footsteps startled them just as much as their presence startled her.

Earlier that day, at two months old, her niece was baptized at long last, the wee Miss Branson. She was baptized Catholic amidst her grandfather's protests and her parents' defenses, which were compounded by her Granny's and her Aunt Mary's who true to their word had fought the older Sybil's corner. Baptized in the presence of her grandfather who had relented in the fear of one day telling the sweet child why her grandfather had not been there, of her Uncle Kieran who had come in from Liverpool to be her Catholic godparent, and of her Mamma, her Mamma who had insisted, pleaded, that too much of her small daughter's life had already been deprived from her, that her baptism will not be another. It was a beautiful summer day.

Her niece was christened Sybil Josephine Branson – Sybil for her mother and Josephine for her aunts – Mary Josephine "Our greatest ally in all this," her sister praised, and Edith Josephine, "For mothering Sybbie when I could not," her sister cried. How sweet Sybil was, how sweet her baby sister always was but that constricted her heart in pain, in fear, that that time was soon to be over, was coming to end.

"I just cannot get enough of her," her sister smiled, kissing the baby's apple cheek.

"Should you be out of bed, especially after such a day?" she replied.

"Try telling her that," her brother-in-law laughed, "I've reminded her that Doctor Clarkson told her to 'take it easy' but this one has a mind of her own."

"But I do feel perfectly fine!" her sister protested.

And she believed her. Weeks have passed since her sister's last seizure; for some time now, she could sit upright in bed; recently she had made the short journey from the bedroom she shared with her husband to the nursery; even Doctor Clarkson had conceded that being present at her daughter's baptism shouldn't cause much harm as long as she did not over-exert herself. Their Sybil had returned to them, truly and very much so, it was a simple as that – Sybbie's mother was alright, she would have her now, completely and absolutely and Aunt Edith would not matter so much – it was time for her to return to her place, to her  _métier_ , the reliable but easily disposable spinster. Amidst her joy, she felt her throat tighten.

"Well, we best be off," her brother-in-law began, "My Sybils should be tucked-in by now. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Edith," her sister murmured as she pressed a kiss to her cheek, the baby still cradled in her arms.

She watched their retreating figures, her baby sister and her husband and their daughter, her baby sister and her family, the family of that wee infant whose blue eyes danced and searched the world for purpose and adventure more than twenty-four years ago. She watched until they turned the corner, her sister and her brother-in-law's soft coos resonating against the halls and echoing into the nursery where she stood alone, insignificant, and unloved.

Husband, wife, mother, father, and baby – try as she might to dispel it, to remind herself that her pain was not her sister's fault, feeling the guilt rise like bile in her stomach, the image of the happy family nevertheless succeeded in leaving in her mouth a very bitter flavor. She named the taste jealousy, and it is a sensation she will remember sharply, piercingly, when she returns to her childhood home, French perfected and baby given-up, three years later – Sybbie, her beautiful, beautiful niece, dirty and giggling on the grass, curls a-mess, as her screams of "Da! Mamma!" filled the air, imploring her laughing father at her mother's side to rescue her from her mother's tickles – and George, the heir, Mary's heir, exclaiming expressions of delight as he rode his father's shoulders and his mother smiled adoringly at the sight.

_"Look at them. Both with their husbands. Sybil's perfect daughter. Mary's perfect heir…Oh just go. I mean it, go!"_

It was to herself that she spoke those words, and off she went – to London and Eaton Square and Aunt Rosamund - away from Downton, away from Mamma and Papa, away from her perfect sisters and their perfect families.


	9. bannies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Here in Dublin where memories reached long into the past and pain was raw as of yet, all that was made even more stark. Here, the Irish blood that ran through her and her sisters' veins was neglected for the Englishness of their accents and the perceived riches of their heritage; Mamma's determined flight from wealth, comfort, and the privileges of the English aristocracy had done nothing to efface the conaissance of her high-born roots; Da, who had fought through ink and turmoil for Irish freedom, was regarded with contempt for marrying into the English nobility and fathering English children. Nanna was protective of them all, of course, and would not hear the smallest slight against her son, her daughter-in-law, and not against the three granddaughters she adored; yet centuries of slight had also been received by their family, most recently Nanna's sister who had screamed and thrashed and once called little Sybbie an English brat, her mother an English bitch, her father a traitor, and cursed them in the name of her late son's memory."

**A/N:** I am so, so, incredibly sorry. I know it's been forever since I've updated but life in addition to my academic life has taken over so my schedule has been entirely devoted to exams, paper writing, field work, presentations, and family responsibilities and I'm still catching up on sleep. I intended to post this last week but I wanted to build up my archive first so that I would have at least a number of fics to share, then my little cousin has come over to spend her vacation here and I've spent the last few days playing mommy to a seven-year old who is uncanily like me at that age so now is the opportunity I have to upload this. Again I'm so sorry for the delay, I'll try to be better!

I hope you enjoy this one and let me know what you think! ;D

* * *

_1937_

"Sybbie? Sybbie, are you awake?"

Her voice was soft, fearing its echoing beyond the confines of their small bedroom to that occupied by their parents across the hall, as her small hands seeking to shake her sleeping sister.

"Sybbie?"

Her sister's blue eyes fluttered open, a smile replacing the initial confusion that had accompanied her awakening.

"Aoife or Saoirse?"

"Aoife."

"Of course," Sybbie's soft laughter echoed throughout the room as she watched Saoirse fitfully toss-and-turn in her sleep.

Clearing a space she had previously occupied, she patted a spot in the small bed for her small sister to take. It was bound to be a tight fit – their grandmother had given her the much smaller bed in the bedroom that once belonged to their uncle while the twins, prone to turns and jerking movements in sleep, were awarded the bigger bed; of course, their grandmother was not ignorant of the problems posed by forcing the quarrelsome twins to share a bed, so Sybbie was installed to assuage any situation that may arise.

Aoife stayed rooted on the floor, however, hesitating at the side of the bed, shifting noiselessly on her tiny feet, wanting but refusing to look her older sister in the eye.

"What is it, Aoife?" Sybbie persisted, lifting her sister into the bed and snuggly tucking the covers around her to keep at bay the cold breeze of a Dublin evening.

This had long constituted a routine between the Branson sisters – Sybbie and one twin, sometimes both, cuddled into a limited space and confiding secrets under the moonlight – how Jack Bates had pressed a not entirely unpleasant kiss against Saoirse's rosy cheek and held her hand two months ago in Downton; how Aoife had tearfully considered throwing the beautiful doll Granny had given last Christmas into the Thames after being told by another little girl, long considered a kindred spirit, that no longer would she associate with posh girls who could afford such costly French dolls; how Sybbie had in truth fretted and cried over a long-drawn argument with George, the subject of which was known in full only to Mamma and in suspicions to Da.

"Sybbie…," Aoife resumed, her alabaster knuckles blanching even more as she gripped the covers under her palms, but the words were stuck in her throat.

Stray ebony strands fell into wet blue eyes and her sister brushed them back with a gentle hand, wiping away the falling tears with her thumb.

"Tell me what it is, darling," Sybbie's voice was soft, "or do you want Mamma instead?"

She shook her head no, perceiving that whatever she had felt, it would have been much worse for Mamma after all –, after a long pause, she found her voice at last which to her small ears sounded choked. She thought her voice sounded like that of a baby and for long now she had struggled to prove to the family that she was no longer that.

"Sybbie… are we so very disagreeable? So very hateful?"

Disagreeable? Hateful? The words that meant to cut made no sense in her sister's mind. They were not words one would accord or use as weapons against a child of six, a child that all things accounted for, was more sweet and empathetic than her age had called for.

"What do you mean, darling?" Sybbie asked.

"Is it because Granny gives Saoirse and me expensive dolls from the continent and because our shoes are new?" now that she was provoked, her words as well as her tears were unstoppable, "is it because you're to be a debutante and because Grandpapa has a title and lives in a castle with an estate and staff? Because of the way we talk? Because Mamma is English and because we are cross-breeds?"

At that Sybbie was startled into speechlessness.

Of course, Aoife, younger by eleven years had no way of knowing or comprehending the memories that constituted her older sister's early childhood, markedly different from her and Saoirse's own.

_Don't let that chauffeur's daughter bother you…go to sleep you wicked little cross-breed._

That counted among her first memories, a nanny from long ago. Sybbie could not recall if she was stout or thin, stocky or svelte, old or young, buried as the memory was beneath Mamma and Da's loving smiles and cuddles and happy romps with the cousin who that very nanny had insisted was Sybbie's superior. Sybbie however remember the unpleasantness of that voice, the strength of its poison that reduced her to a dog and not a little girl, forcing her to cry for Mamma and Da. In a haze, she recalled the sound of Mamma's hand colliding against nanny's face, then the feeling of Mamma's arms lifting two-year old baby Sybbie and marching out of the nursery, leaving indignant Granny, with laudable calm, to dismiss the wicked creature.

_She's the chauffeur's daughter, isn't she? Pity. She would have made a most desirable debutante._

_Lord Grantham's granddaughter is delightful, truly, strikingly beautiful too, only…Poor Lord Grantham._

_Tragic isn't it, when one thinks of those three delightful girls? If only Lady Sybil had not been so young and foolish, liberal too!_

Sybbie's childhood had been privileged, in truth, far more privileged than that of her sisters upon whose birth that grandiose past had already been far behind, briefly relieved only in snippets during short visits to Yorkshire. All that had long since been far behind, but the whispers have remained ever present, whispers from elsewhere – eyes that judged, voices that condemned in low tones, that ascribed them all to that world and ignored the injuries it had accorded them. They did not see how independent and proud Mamma and Da had been humbled in their relief when Granny, coming into anxieties of finances becoming more difficult to come by amidst the depression, had replaced the twins' holed and ratty school shoes with new durable if expensive pairs that would hopefully last two years. They closed their eyes to the fringes in Da's worn coat and to the blisters in Mamma's hands as she sought to fit Sybbie's old dresses to the twins' proportions. They did not know that Sybbie's coming out was a concession constituted by guilt and duty for an extended family on the last fringes of the old ways and normalcy ("I thought it best that you won't be shocked to it," George had two months ago announced to a drawing room struck dumb, "I'm enlisting with the RAF should this war happen. I'll be of age in '39 so there won't be any problems.").

Here in Dublin where memories reached long into the past and pain was raw as of yet, all that was made even more stark. Here, the Irish blood that ran through her and her sisters' veins was neglected for the Englishness of their accents and the perceived riches of their heritage; Mamma's determined flight from wealth, comfort, and the privileges of the English aristocracy had done nothing to efface the conaissance of her high-born roots; Da, who had fought through ink and turmoil for Irish freedom, was regarded with contempt for marrying into the English nobility and fathering English children. Nanna was protective of them all, of course, and would not hear the smallest slight against her son, her daughter-in-law, and not against the three granddaughters she adored; yet centuries of slight had also been received by their family, most recently Nanna's sister who had screamed and thrashed and once called little Sybbie an English brat, her mother an English bitch, her father a traitor, and cursed them in the name of her late son's memory.

The hatred was not unfounded, of course, and scars such as their father's cousin cold in his premature grave, would never heal, but that did not make it any easier for any of them – in one world Mamma was pitied and looked down upon for following her heart and choosing beneath her, in another Da was ostracized for stubbornly choosing love when his beloved represented the blood spilt of Ireland, in both their three daughters were variously regarded as curiosities, outcasts, or freaks.

Sybbie, very much her parents' daughter had long ago found the strength and indifference not to care, to close her eyes and ears to people who refused to see her beyond the identity imposed by her birth. Saoirse, the freest spirit of them all, had simply never cared ("Yes, my Da was a chauffeur at Downton before he and Mamma married, what's it to you?" "Yes, my Grandpapa lives in a castle in England, so what? I'm perfectly happy with our small house in London!"). But Aoife, sweet Aoife had always felt such things more, had always detested the labels and the designations much more.

"Aoife…" Sybbie began when speech returned to her.

"Does all that make us so hateful then, Sybbie? Are we that hateful?"

"Darling, who said we are hateful? What has that person said to you?"

"Ciarán Finnegan did," Aoife replied. In the moonlight, tears flowed from her blue eyes, "when Rory left to get the ball from the neighbor. He said I was an English Rose but he was so spiteful when he said it, then he said that rich little ladies like me are the reason why his Grandda and Uncle are dead."

 _The little_ coward, Sybbie fumed,  _of course he would say that when Rory's back is turned!_ Twelve years old, of paramount wit, and considerable strength, their cousin Rory ruled the lads this side of Dublin, feared by even Ciarán Finnegan who would not dare utter a single insult against Rory's English cousins in his presence, but in his absence…

"I didn't kill anyone Sybbie. I don't want anyone hurt," Aoife continued to cry, "does being English mean that I want people to get hurt? But I'm Irish too, am I not, Sybbie?"

"Of course you are, darling. Me and Saoirse too, and it doesn't mean that at all," Sybbie consoled as she ran a soft hand through her sister's fine raven locks in hopes of calming her.

It was a tragedy of course, what had happened to Ciarán's uncle and grandfather who had been tortured then shot in Mountjoy Prison in 1921 during the War of Independence. His father had certainly not forgotten its horrors and raised his children in contempt of all things English.

"Then why do they all think us so hateful, Sybbie?

"Because wounds remain fresh and scars run centuries deep on this side of the Irish Sea, Aoife."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that," Sybbie breathed deeply, "there are things, many horrible things that the English have done to the Irish that have merited Ireland's anger."

"But we've never done anything so horrible, have we? Mamma is a nurse, she was a nurse  _here_ , and you're going to be a doctor! You're just like Mamma, you want to help people, not harm them!"

"I know, darling. I do. It's just…well, things are complicated. The world is awfully complicated when it should not be, don't you agree?"

Aoife's little head nodded in acquiescence.

With her thumb, Sybbie wiped away the tears on her sister's cheeks. Poor little Aoife, it was a quality she will carry well into adulthood and define the woman she would become – the constant search for a middle ground or an outer ground, where being an Irish chauffeur's daughter will not define her limitations and the respected granted to her as defined by a cruel man-made world, where being an English earl's granddaughter will not define her as cruel, indifferent, and imperial.

Aoife was too young to know such a world, to little to be thrown into it.  _Not yet, please_.

"But Aoife," her sister persisted, "you don't have to be defined by your accent or who you were born as. You're Aoife Branson, darling, and that's all that matters. Mamma, Da, Saoirse, and I don't care about all the other details and the world shouldn't either."

"Sybbie? Aoife?" a small voice called from the other side of the room, followed by lithe footsteps that brought the baby of the family into the same small bed where her older sisters cuddled. With no need of an invitation, she wedged herself into her eldest sister's other side and drew the sheets to her chest.

"Have you two realized," Sybbie laughed as she put an arm around Saoirse's shoulder just as she was currently doing to Aoife, "that Nanna gave you the larger bed for a reason? It's bad enough that you crowd my bed in London too."

"What are you talking about?" Saoirse ignored her sister's question in favor of her own, sleep had long since gone from her voice. Since infancy her energy had known no bounds and neither had her impulse.

"It's nothing, darling."

"Are you…talking about why everyone here except Nanna is so mean?" Saoirse asked

"Ciarán Finnegan says you're an English Rose too, Sissy," Aoife responded from Sybbie's side.

Saoirse shrugged, "Charles Grey told Meg that she would best keep away from chauffeurs' daughters because we're contagious, when we were last in Downton."

"Contagious of what?" Aoife queried.

"We are not contagious!" Sybbie's tone was indignant, "Listen, being the daughters of a hard-working man does not make us any less human than anyone else. I'm proud that Da and Mamma work for a living! It makes everything more meaningful. Boys of that Grey boy's kind on the other hand –,"

"I know that," Saoirse retorted grinning, "and I told him that at least my Da and Mamma work enough so that they don't turn into fat pigs like his parents! Do you know, Georgie says that they must weigh eight hundred pounds,  _each_!"

Aoife and Sybbie laughed softly, careful not to rouse Mamma and Da and Sybbie continued, "What did Meg do?"

"Tripped him, then Jack Bates punched him the face. He cried," Saoirse giggled, "and Meg told him that if he went peddling on such nonsense, she would get Georgie to throw him into the lake or into the pen with Aunt Mary's pigs."

"Charles Grey is a pig, Cousin Rose says," Aoife assented in a stand of sisterly solidarity, ""A disagreeable child more swine than man'. Granny says it's a pity because his grandfather is such a nice man."

The sound of the door opening penetrated the darkness, followed by their Nanna's thick Irish brogue and a lamp that casted an orange glow. She slept like a cat, "Heavens! What are you three girls doing awake and laughing at this unholy hour? You'd think that trip would tire you! Thank goodness you haven't waked your Mam and Da!"

"Nothing, Nanna," Sybbie smiled as her sisters shook their heads no.

"Well, if you want to be awake when we go to the coast tomorrow, you girls better sleep. Now!"

Sybbie drew the blanket higher around them three and the twins settled against their sister, their brilliant blue eyes shutting.

"Heavens, not there! Aoife, Saoirse, have pity on your sister! You don't want to waste the big bed I set for you, do you?"

The twins giggled and padded across their room to the bigger bed. Settled in, Nanna tucked the blankets around their small bodies and pressed a kiss against each of their foreheads, before doing the same to Sybbie.

"Good night, girls."

"Good night, Nanna."


	10. malade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Da…," Saoirse croaked, waking from a fitful slumber and raising her hands in an action that meant that she wanted to be carried and babied.
> 
> Muscles aching, he gathered their baby into his arms and started to stand.
> 
> "Tom, don't!" Sybil countered, turning to their daughter, "Darling, Da is sick too, don't you want to stay in bed and cuddle?"
> 
> Saoirse shook her head no. Sick and uncomfortable, the reception of refuse was much harder to accept. She burrowed her ebony head into his neck and exclaimed in a cracked voice, "Walk!"

**A/N:** This was supposed to go up much earlier but well, net had broken down at home and I haven't had it for a week except for stolen moments of 3G so here you go. We've had too much a dose of anst lately, haven't we (I'm feeling very antsy lately as well so there's that. I'm in a  _mood_  better put - when does feeling like this end or will this go past my twenties, does anyone know?) ? Oh my! So as penance (and balm) here is a healthy dose of 100% unadulterated fluff, complete with a fluffy bunny bouncing around - or two noisy and stubborn toddlers exactly like their parents bouncing around. And this chappie focuses on S/T again! Yay!

I've imagined that Sybil would be a mother much more relzed with her children than how she herself was raised so her girls would inevitably be allowed free reign to do many Sybil was not allowed to but on the other hand, Sybil is a nurse and in place of propriety, there's the clinical mentality to see to her family's health so those sides of Sybil is what I tried to explore here.

And I think we can all agree that without Sybil the Branson family will be running like chickens with their heads cut off!

Reviews are medicine to cold-infected sinuses! Vote for the next - angst or fluff? ;D

**Disclaimer:** If DA was mine, Sybil and Matthew will still walk the Yorkshire earth.

* * *

_1934_

"AH-CHOO! AH-CHOO!"

He woke up with a start, to the sound of his own voice, ringing through his pounding ear drums. He realized that he felt warm and congested, and that his muscles ached, but nowhere near as painful did they ache as the burning sensation at the back of his throat.

"Sybil?" he croaked.

No response.

He forced one eye open and registered the emptiness of his wife's side of the bed. On the night table beyond it, the small clock read 8:30.  _Feck_.  _Feck feck feck feck._

He jumped from the bed, as quickly as his fevered and aching body allowed and ran to the wardrobe, dressing in a panic, not stopping to verify the state of his appearance by the mirror against the side of their bedroom. Early lark that she was, Sybil must have long since left for her morning shift at the hospital, he realized; but it explained in no way why she had not woken him as she normally would when he overslept following a long day at work, an exhausting evening of corralling two arguing toddlers, or a prolonged night of love-making. 8:30.  _Feck feck feck._  He had a deadline due, concerning the growing unrest of the political climate in reaction to Himmler's assumed control of the German police forces. Tom's editor was nothing if not a slave driver and he had not risen through the paper's ranks by lazing about.

Rushing out the door and onto the stairs, he prayed fervently that whatever breakfast Poppy, their maid-of-all-work, had lain out was something he could carry and eat on the tube ride to the newspaper office.

"AH-CHOO! AH-CHOO!"

The sight that greeted him as he descended the last step was atypical of the Branson household – his eldest daughter groaned at the table, already dressed in her school uniform but of whose curly coiffeur was in a state of disarray that emphasized the rouge of her eyes and nose, it was her sneezing that he heard at the stairwell; old Poppy at the stove, as per usual, but of whose breakfast menu today consisted not of pancakes or shortbread but of soup, "Chicken noodle, Mr. Branson, my mum swears by it as a cure for many an ailment!"; and Sybil – his wife stood by the door, one hand on the sneezing and red-eyed toddler at her hip, the other at her waist, in a pose that was meant to be threatening, she wore what she called "house clothes,". Beside her stood the elder half of their twin girls, hands at her waist, no doubt in a pose meant to imitate her mother. Her sunny disposition in a house full of sick easily contradicted the supposed menace she was meant to exude. The picture mother and daughter painted was so funny, Tom would have laughed aloud if his throat did not ache so painfully.

"And where do you think you're going?" Sybil challenged as he moved to kiss her before heading off to work, brown suitcase and report in hand.

"Da sick! Da bed!" Two-and-a-half-year-old Aoife commanded, she was uninfected, it seemed.

"AH-CHOO!" Both Sybbie and Saoirse sneezed and groaned at exactly the same time.

Yesterday, home from work early, he and all three of their girls had played a game in the back garden of their little house – a cross between tag, hopscotch, and hide-and-seek, and London being London, it did not take long for a shower to descend – not that it stopped their fun in any way. Sybil arrived home from her shift soon after; she had not scolded them nor prevented them from pursuing their play, only remarked coldly in a combination of an aristocratic Crawley affectation and a firm, no-nonsense Nurse Branson tone, "We've had fifteen children and five adults complaining of a cold today. They all thought a little early spring rain was harmless too – don't say I didn't warn you." As it was, only sensible, little Aoife took her mother's advice and happily trailed after her into the house for a long, hot, and disinfecting bath.

"Sybil, I have to go to work" talking hurt, as did walking, "I have to meet a deadline at 9."

"Not in that state you don't."

"Love, David is waiting for the report on Himmler, you know how he –,"

"Yes I do," she retorted firmly, "and I told him that if he did not give you a day off he's bound to lose more reporters by the end of the week to the cold. He asks to tell you to get well as soon as possible because he'll need you to cover Westminster's response and says that he wants an editorial on Himmler before the end of the week."

Rendering him stupefied and speechless, she softened and smiled, "Darling, half your shirt isn't even tucked in, and you're wearing mismatched socks. Now, be a good example to your sick daughter and come eat some soup."

She handed him the still groaning Saoirse and lead him to the table where the motion of their firstborn daughter reaching for her school bag and standing up brought back the firmness of her tone.

"Just what do you think you're doing, young lady?"

"We have an examination today, Mamma," Sybbie croaked, "Miss Adams said it would constitute thirty percent of the grade. I  _have_  to go to school."

"Sybil, your father is staying home today and so are you."

"But Mamma –"

"No buts, Sybbie," her mother retorted. Nurse Sybil Branson was widely celebrated at the hospital for her bedside manner – her uncanny ability to soothe patients in the highest degree of pain, her sympathetic nature, but to the most stubborn of patients she was equally as stubborn and in the form of her namesake who was so like her, she was not to be defeated in a battle of wills, "I already called your school and Miss Adams said that you can take the examination whenever you are well enough to do so."

Sybbie answered with a grunt to which Sybil replied with, "Lie down in your room and I will bring your next dosage in four hours. Try to get some sleep, darling."

"Shouldn't you be at work, love?" Tom asked as the sounds of their daughter's footsteps echoed down the stairs?

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Sybil teased, pulling the grinning Aoife into her lap, happily munching on a piece of gingerbread.

"You know that's not what I mean, love," Tom laughed softly, the pain in his throat increasing with every laugh.

"I substituted for Nurse Collins last week when her little girl was ill. She was more than happy to return the favor."

"Da, gingerbread!" Saoirse called out from her nook in her father's arms, glaring at her twin with the lovely little gingerbread.

"You have nice, warm, chicken soup, Saoirse," her father replied, "you don't need gingerbread, love."

"Aoife no soup! Aoife gingerbread!"

"But Aoife's not ill, darling. You have to eat your soup so that you can get well and eat gingerbread too," her mother added, brushing away the stray strands of ebony locks that had fallen into her daughter's face.

"Not fair! Saoirse gingerbread!

From her corner in her mother's lap, Aoife grinned smugly, biting into her treat with even more relish, as her sick twin's cries gave way to wails and tantrums.

Today was going to be a long day.

* * *

For luncheon, the whole family sans Sybbie found themselves coped in his and Sybil's bedroom – He and little Saoirse snuggled, sneezing, and miserable under the covers; Aoife happily singing to the doll Sybbie had long passed on to the twins, a tow-haired beauty named Niamh, at the armchair by the window; and Sybil, an apron round her waist, attempting to force a bowl of hot soup down his swollen throat while watching the clock for Sybbie's next dosage (he had taken his only an hour previously and Saoirse's immediately followed Sybbie's).

"Love, I'm not an invalid, I  _can_  walk down the stairs and dine at the table," he whispered, his voice, it seemed was decreasing in volume by the second.

"And leave me to manage a sick and fussy toddler by myself?" his wife retorted, "and you know she'll be asking for her Da the minute you step out of this room. All three of them do when they're sick, you should know that by now."

For almost fourteen years now, their girls clung to him when they felt poorly, burrowing into his neck, asking to be swayed around the room, begging for stories and promises of treats when they were well. Worship and adore their mother as all three of them did, they shied away from her when ill, fearing the foul-tasting medicine she would inevitably force them to drink, as well as the less pleasant meals she would make them endure until the end of the illness.

"Da…," Saoirse croaked, waking from a fitful slumber and raising her hands in an action that meant that she wanted to be carried and babied.

Muscles aching, he gathered their baby into his arms and started to stand.

"Tom, don't!" Sybil countered, turning to their daughter, "Darling, Da is sick too, don't you want to stay in bed and cuddle?"

Saoirse shook her head no. Sick and uncomfortable, the reception of refuse was much harder to accept. She burrowed her ebony head into his neck and exclaimed in a cracked voice, "Walk!"

"It's alright," he told his wife as he paced the length of the room to sooth the discomfort of the child in his arms, rubbing a hand up and down her small back, "and I do know, love. But you already have two sick children to take care of, you don't have to worry about me too."

"You're sick, Tom, of course I'm worried. And that's why you're here, to help me corral them into submission," she laughed, giving him a quick peck as he passed by the place she stood with the bowl of soup.

The clock strung 12:30 and she turned to her only perfectly healthy child still singing to her doll, "Darling, can you please see if Sybbie is awake so that I can administer her medicine?"

Saoirse's small face contorted in disgust upon hearing the detested word while her twin left the room, doll still in tow.

"Sybbie!" Aoife's voice was sunny and in all instances, incredibly loud, echoing through his throbbing ears and no doubt both of his sick daughters'; Saoirse fussed even more in his arms and covered her ears, "Awake? Mamma said medicine!"

"Wake-y, Sybbie! Wake-y! Mamma said medicine!" she laughed still echoing through his ears.

Poor, uncomfortable, almost-fourteen-year-old Sybbie responded with an indignant and strained, "Go away Aoife!"

In perfect health, Sybbie was her mother's daughter – sweet and helpful, active and restless, in search of some activity to do, and infinitely patient with her persistently squabbling and equally active baby sisters – a quite remarkable feat that many, including their Irish grandmother who had grown-up in a large brood and raised one of her own, and their aristocratic English grandfather who fathered two daughters in perpetual enmity, found especially trying. Sick, Sybbie would withdraw into herself, enclosing herself in her bedroom ("Where I'm less likely to hear the little monsters screaming like a pair of banshees!" she had said), and becoming so disagreeable that only her mother and father dared to trespass into her domain.

Aoife was not to be deterred however.

"Sybbie still ill? Aoife asked, her voice still impossibly high-pitched.

"Yes, Aoife. Sybbie's ill, now, go away! Mamma! Da!"

"Sybbie awake, Mamma! But Sybbie's grumpy! Up, Da! Up!" she exclaimed returning to her parents' bedroom with a sunshiny smile still plastered on her face, lifting her arms up to be carried as well

"Aoife and Saoirse share Da!" she added charitably despite her sister's gaze of scorn.

"Gimme Niamh! Mine!" Saoirse screeched, grabbing at the doll as their father bent to take Aoife with his other hand.

Whether understanding the flurry their mother had to endure and the awfulness their father felt, or because she felt smug that she could eat gingerbread and play to her heart's desire while her sick twin was not allowed to, she held out the doll, hesitating at the last minute to say with a smile, "After medicine."

* * *

Dinner was not much better, but at the least it offered the prospect of a night's rest – unless, of course, the sick toddler who they had decided would spend the night in their bedroom, was to wake squalling in the wee hours, which inevitably would wake her equally ill and inordinately crabby older sister across the hall – a prospect that did not at all sound appealing to an equally ill parent (More than a year ago, shortly before the twins turned one, they rejoiced over the fact that they were leaving behind midnight wake-up calls forever – he knew now that it was a silly assumption).

"Saoirse, please. I promise this is the last one and I won't give you another one anymore. Please, darling," Sybil pleaded with their youngest as he held her tight to prevent her from thrashing and throwing the crimson syrup onto the sheets. Again. But their child, much like them, was hard-pressed to be forced to do something she did not want to, vigorously shaking her head no at the sight of the spoon filled with the foul-tasting liquid.

Presently, their second daughter's footsteps penetrated the room, skipping happily from the dinner Poppy had prepared and already in her nightdress, fresh from her bath. She too, they had decided, would spend the night in their bedroom if only to ensure she would not feel ignored or left-out in favor of her sick sisters; he had fretted to his wife that Aoife may catch whatever he, Sybbie, and Saoirse had but Sybil had early on ruled out its likeliness, reasoning that if Aoife was going to be sick from playing in the rain, she already would be now.

"Lemon square! Yum! Yum!" Aoife exclaimed, earning a murderous gaze from her twin whose dinner was limited to chicken noodle soup and whose dessert consisted of syrup. Tom's dinner was more or less the same, and he sighed in envy.

"Saoirse still sick, Mamma?" she asked as she pulled Niamh into her arms, mercifully abandoned by the sick child on the far side of the bed.

"I'm afraid so, darling."

"Sybbie too?

"Sybbie too."

"Da too?"

"Yes, darling, Da is still sick," he answered, pulling her close and pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head.

"Poor Da!" Aoife cried as she put her arms around her father's neck and allowed Niamh to slip back into the bed.

She had stayed a long while in her father's arms, trying and succeeding in comforting him, when her blue eyes lit in excitement and delight, "Aoife read Da and Mamma and Saoirse a bedtime story! Aoife always feel better after bedtime story!"

Before any of them could react, Aoife had already slipped out of his arms and out the door, presumably to go to the nursery where they kept a small collection of children's books, some of which they had read to a little Sybbie and a little George many years past in the nursery at Downton, and which they now read to the twins nightly. Through the open door, they could hear Aoife's sunshiny voice humming a tune she had learned from Sybbie the week before. When she returned, she was clutching a colorful volume sketched with rose windows and which read  _La Belle et la Bête_. He groaned inwardly at his daughter's choice, one of the aristocratic French stories his in-laws had stocked the Downton nursery with; at least, he concurred, it was nowhere near as predictable as those other fairy stories which ended with the princess waking with true love's kiss. His wife was always one of the sort to take action in the story instead of passively waiting for prince charming to come wake her and he was apprehensive about passing such fairy tale ideals to his daughters.

Aoife settled herself once more in the crook of his arm before easing out once more and running into the hall. It was to Sybbie's room she had run off to judging by the grunts that echoed back to them. When Aoife had finally returned for good, she led her older sister by the hand and directed her to the place she had previously occupied on the bed, settling herself at their feet, her book wide open.

"Aoife read to everyone! Just like Mamma and Da read stories to Aoife! Once upon a time," she began eagerly, her voice high which may not have been the best option for her sick family; the gesture was nonetheless appreciated, "in a land far, far away."

She paused at that, confusion taking over her features only for tears to gather in her wide blue, eyes.

"Mamma, I don't know what comes next!"

"Do you want me to help you, darling?"

She nodded eagerly, passing the book to her mother who had since abandoned the syrup bottle on the bedside table and had taken a spot at the corner of the bed. Sybil stood and carried her daughter off, only to settle her firmly on her lap as they took their place again at the end of the bed.

"Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a merchant who was extremely rich. He had six sons and three daughters," Sybil grinned at that, watching her own three daughters who eagerly listened to her voice, silenced from the sneezes and grunts that had plagued them all afternoon, "Because he was a man of wit, he stopped at nothing for the education of his children, giving them all sorts of mastery…"

When Sybil had read the last page, "His subjects welcomed him with much joy and he married the beauty, with whom he lived long and in perfect happiness because this happiness was founded in virtue," their two sick girls lay fast asleep as did the perfectly healthy one in her arms, but Tom was not.

"Your daughter is right, you know," he smiled despite the croaking that remained in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"One does feel much better after a bedtime story, especially when you're the storyteller, love."

"Oh, but I'm not," Sybil laughed, her voice ringing like bells, "Aoife is the real storyteller. I was only helping out."

* * *

**A/N:** Heinrich Himmler was a leading member of the Nazi party and an overseer of the extermination camps during the Holocaust. In 1934, he took control of the police forces in Germany. [Wikipedia]

_La Belle et la Bête_ is a seventeenth-century fairytale written by Madame le Prince de Beaumont. With significant changes, Disney adopted it to what is now the 1991  _Beauty and the Beast_. The original varies in that  _La Belle_  (who is not given an actual first name, referred to only as "the beauty") has siblings and Gaston and Le Fou are non-existent and most of the drama take place at the hands of La Belle's sisters. A celebrated film version of the story was directed by Jean Cocteau in the 1940s.


	11. aurore boréale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George grinned and Sybbie continued, "And you, what would you wish for?"
> 
> George hesitated a moment and then, "I wish you would stay at Downton. I don't want you to go to London."
> 
> "Georgie…"
> 
> "Then why?"
> 
> "You know why. Da's got a job at a newspaper, it's a real chance! And Mamma will be working in a big hospital again! They can't just leave me at Downton."
> 
> "But, why do Uncle Tom and Aunt Sybil have to leave Downton? They have jobs here too! Don't they like Downton anymore?"
> 
> "You'll always be my bestest friend, George, no matter who I meet in London," Sybbie finally said, entirely eclipsing her cousin's question.
> 
> "But you won't be in Downton anymore!" Tears had begun to gather round his blue eyes – they had always been a team, more brother and sister than cousins, more twins than the baby sisters Sybbie would one day have, and never had a separation felt so keen and striking, worse even than when Sybbie had gone to Dublin for an entire month, "You're leaving, Sybbie! "You're leaving me and I'll be left with Nanny and you're never coming back!"

**A/N:** My friend (who has yet to watch DA but is still awesome for all that) read Lux Facta Est and told me that George is the sweetest little boy (see I told you she's awesome!) so because of that, I'm posting this - a.k.a. more Sybbie and George adorable moments. I realized that, located in the Scottish Highlands, Duneagle would experience Aurora Borealis, and that invoked all my Frozen feels so this scene is partly inspired by Elsa and Anna. Originally, this was supposed to be 100% fluff but well, apparently the story has a mind of it's own and so we have this.

I'm so, so sorry for the delay but no net until last week and I went on a net hiatus until today so there's that. I hope this would make-up for the delay.

I hope you enjoy and don't forget that reviews will make Olaf a happy snowman!

P.S. The Aurora has reached into England this year! Have you seen the photos? One day I will see Aurora myself! =D

P.P.S. I've started on a new story of the Crawley-Branson families set in WWII and I've gotten three or four chapters on Sybbie and Tom and Sybil written down but my Comprehensive Exams are just around the corner so in the meantime, I would be greatful for some suggestions.

 **Dislcaimer:** Si c'était le mien, DA, Sybil et Matthew resteraient encore vivant! (You know the drill)

* * *

_25 December 1925_

She could not return to sleep; rather, she would not return to sleep, not with the lights dancing outside her window. They were calling out to her –  _Sybbie. Sybbie. Sybbie!_

Of course, Nanny would be furious. "Being awake before the sun was very naughty, Miss Sybbie," she had cried yesterday at the sight of the little girl gazing in wonder at the night sky, her place by the window seat. "Now you would fall asleep at the table at luncheon, Miss!" Nanny had pursued, "Please take care not to do it again, especially not tomorrow of all days! Imagine, the little miss, privileged enough to dine Christmas luncheon with their Lordships and all the adults, then dozing off in plain sight of the Dowager Countess and  _Lady Flintshire_! Dear me, I wonder how Lady Sybil and her Ladyship managed it! And Master George!"

"But we always eat Christmas luncheon with everyone, Nanny!" Sybbie had retorted.

"In Downton perhaps, but it seems India has not warmed Lady Flintshire to the notion that children must be heard  _in addition to_  seen. Now, be a good girl and promise me not to do that again or Father Christmas might decide that Scotland is too taxing a journey to deliver your presents. You too, Master George."

They had then nodded their assent, fearful of Father Christmas' wrath if they were naughty.

But today – the green light seeped into the nursery at Duneagle coaxing Sybbie's lids open, willing her to leave her bed, pulling her out into the garden that overlooked the Highlands' vista. The temptation was too much to resist. She stood, walked over to her cousin's bed at the other side of the room and shook him.

"George!" she said in a whisper, lest Nanny be woken.

He replied in small mumbles and lisps.

"Georgie!"

More mumbles.

"George Reginald!"

"Still sleepy, Sybbie Josie-phine!"

"The sky is awake, George! It's time to be awake."

"No. The sky sleepy," he burrowed himself further into his pillow, "Wanna sleep, Sybbie. Go 'way."

She was not to be deterred; not now when fairy lights danced outside their window. George was her best friend and knowing him as she did she knew how angry he would be at the light of day knowing she had gone to see the beautiful lights without him. Not that sneaking out of the nursery to sit on the cold, frozen ground (it was too bothersome to grab their coats – and of course, that would entail rousing Nanny) at the break of dawn when the whole house was asleep would be as fun without her partner-in-crime.

"George, look! The fairy lights are back!" she ran as noiselessly as she could to the window and drew the curtains open a tiny bit. That tiny bit had sufficed to bathe the room in an emerald hue, mixing with hints of purple and rose, dancing ever so slightly against the Scottish winter sky. Yesterday, they had watched it from the window and decided that the lights were the road to some northern fairy's kingdom. Before Nanny had risen, they had decided to see it beyond the nursery's confines – perhaps then they could reach to it and touch the hues with their small, bare hands.

George's eye opened the tiniest bit, then both his eyes, growing bluer and rounder as he took in the tableau playing out before them. His feet hitting the ground noiselessly, stealthily as a child in fear of rousing Nanny could be. He looked his cousin in the eye, "Let's go, before Nanny catches us."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Sybbie laughed, her voice soft.

She padded to the wardrobe, pulling them each socks and knits from a drawer she could barely reach, careful to keep quiet. Clothing on their feet and on their backs instead of splayed on the floor, they tip-toed out of the nursery, silent as thieves.

The sound of footsteps greeted them as they stepped into the hallway, undoubtedly that of the footmen who had risen early to clear the residue of the previous night. They pressed on undaunted. After all, aged four and five were they not already veterans at the art of mischief and of stealth? Sybbie understood perfectly that it was in her blood, and George, from the moment he had been laid on the bassinet next to Sybbie's crib in the Downton nursery, had trained only from the best.

They rounded the grand staircase and hid by several cupboards and shelves, away from the eyes of the maids purposely rushing to tidy the drawing room and the library. Several minutes passed, they at last found themselves out the back door which had mercifully been emptied by the staff's morning routine.

Beyond the gardens they trudged until they stopped near a cliff that overlooked the contours and heights that made up the Scottish Highlands. From this vantage, mountains of green-and-brown spanned the horizon, rising majestically from the inky depths of the still-dark sky. Dots of yellow and white lights rose from the heights, the picture of habitation, the hearths of the great houses and the villages that surrounded them. Above, beyond the mountains, beyond them, and beyond everything, green bursts abounded, casting illumination over the otherwise dark sky; rose mélanged the green, and so had shocks of purple. Far from being stationary, the lights danced – slowly, gracefully, advancing and then withdrawing against the dawn. They had never seen anything of the sort in Yorkshire, so alluring, so magical, it felt as if they were watching a fairy story come to life before their eyes.

"What do you think the fairies are doing?" Sybbie asked as they settled against the snow, their backs flat against the ground, their eyes to the sky.

"Maybe they're celebrating Christmas too? Do you suppose Father Christmas comes to them as well?"

"I know he does. They have to be happy else they won't make such pretty colors, don't you think?" Sybbie answered, her voice just as her eyes continuing to marvel.

George responded with a sound of assent and Sybbie continued, "Do you know, when we were in Dublin last summer, my Nanna told me that at the end of every rainbow, you can find a pot of gold."

"Gold, you mean treasure?"

"Yes, treasure, lots and lots of treasure. But it's the treasure of the leprechaun, the little men who make shoes. And if a human finds it, the leprechaun will grant the human three wishes."

George's blue eyes grew wide in amazement, "Do you suppose there's treasure at the end of the fairy lights too?"

"I don't know, maybe. They have so many colors, they look like some funny rainbow."

"I want to find out, Sybbie. I want to see if there is treasure at the end of the light. Suppose we go find out someday?"

"We will, when we are old enough and tall enough to touch the lights. Do you think we will ever be that tall, George?"

"We would! Papa and Uncle Tom and Grandpapa seem tall enough to touch them, so we would be too!"

Sybbie made a sound of assent before they returned to watching the light of day beginning to join the mixture of colors. Soon, the house will be up and Nanny will come looking for them and would no doubt scold them, but for now none of that was on their minds – the beauty was so overwhelming that it had charmed two raucous children into silence.

"Sybbie…" George began again after a few minutes had passed, hesitancy in his voice.

"Mhm-hmm?"

"We  _are_  going to look for the treasure at the end of the light someday, right?"

"Of course we will, Georgie! Or are you turning into a scaredy cat on me? Don't tell me you're scared of a leprechaun when the man-with-a-funny name almost ate us!"

"Of course not!" George retorted indignantly before laughing aloud.

"What would your three wishes be when we find the treasure?" he continued.

"A beautiful princess doll with curly, black hair like Mamma's, all the lemon drops and butterscotch and gummy worms in the world, and a baby sister!"

"But you've already asked Father Christmas for one!"

"So? It can't hurt to be pers-is-tent," Sybbie replied, helping herself to big words in a manner only the daughter of a man who is to become a journalist once more can.

"But aren't you scared, Sybbie?"

"Of what?"

"Of Aunt Sybil and Uncle Tom not loving you anymore when a new baby comes."

"But why would they do that?" she asked, genuine confusion in her tone.

"Clarissa Westford said that her Mamma and Papa stopped caring for her when her baby brother was born because he was heir and Clarissa was just a little girl."

"What is an heir?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it made them stop loving her," George answered.

Barely halfway through the first decade of their lives, they mercifully remained protected from many cruelties, still shielded by their innocence, still cosseted by parents who sought to protect them from a world that had tried so hard to beat them down.  _Your father loves you very much. Then why won't he fight for me? I'm not asking you to agree with the system, merely to acknowledge it. But I don't acknowledge it. You want me to give up the man I love for a system I don't believe in. Where's the sense in that?_

"Well, Clarissa's Mamma and Da are awful. Mine are not," there was conviction in Sybbie's small voice, "and I want a baby sister. I know Mamma and Da would want another one to baby, they don't say it but I know, and I'm getting too spoiled, my Uncle Kieran says, being an only child and all. But I don't want a baby brother – I already have you!"

George grinned and Sybbie continued, "And you, what would you wish for?"

George hesitated a moment and then, "I wish you would stay at Downton. I don't want you to go to London."

"Georgie…"

Sybbie frowned at that. Leaving for London was hard, there were so many she could not bear to leave at Downton – Grandpapa and Granny, Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew, Gran Violet and Aunt Isobel, Thomas and Mrs. Hughes and Isis, most of all, more so than everyone else, George, her greatest ally and the closest thing she had to a sibling. But London made Mamma and Da so happy. Renewed freedom had made them so happy.

"It will be an adventure, darling!" Mamma had said.

"It will be us Bransons starting over again and we only have to play by our rules!" Da had smiled.

"You will have your own room."

"There would be no more Nanny."

"You would go to a  _real_  school, Sybbie. Imagine that! With little boys and girls your age! And you would be so clever, darling! You would learn so much more than I have, not just French and how to curtsy and how to say yes!"

"When you're old enough, you would go to a university! What would your Nan say to that?" there was so much pride and hope in Da's voice, "And all three of us could go see the pictures, like your Mamma and I used to do in Dublin, and maybe you could come to Da's office and tell your friends that you've been to a real newsroom! Doesn't that sound nice?"

And so she was happy too because Mamma and Da were happy; but George...

"If it won't make Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew sad, my second wish would be to bring you along to London, George, honest."

"But why do you have to leave? Don't you like Downton anymore? Don't you like playing with me anymore?"

"George! Of course I do!"

"Then why?"

"You know why. Da's got a job at a newspaper, it's a real chance! And Mamma will be working in a big hospital again! They can't just leave me at Downton."

"But, why do Uncle Tom and Aunt Sybil have to leave Downton? They have jobs here too! Don't they like Downton anymore?"

It wasn't that. They did not  _dislike_  Downton exactly, but it  _suffocated_  them. Downton to them was like a swallow falling into its nest to wake with its wings cut off. They did not belong there, not to a life of comfort and repetition and stalemate; they belonged to the skies, to ambition, and persistence, and freedom. Sybbie was a perceptive child; while she did not understand it completely, she at least felt that, and she was nothing if not her parents' child. Today, she already had her small rebellions – cookie crumbs between meals that would ruin her appetite and her frocks, sneaking into Mamma and Da's bedroom when Nanny had been mandated to keep her in the nursery at night, unbounded curiosity, scraped knees, muddy skirts, and many a curl out of place. Sooner rather than later, the great stone walls and gilded frames of the Abbey would smother her as well.

"You'll always be my best _est_  friend, George, no matter who I meet in London," Sybbie finally said, entirely eclipsing her cousin's question.

"But you won't be in Downton anymore!" Tears had begun to gather round his blue eyes – they had always been a team, more brother and sister than cousins, more twins than the baby sisters Sybbie would one day have, and never had a separation felt so keen and striking, worse even than when Sybbie had gone to Dublin for an entire month, "You're leaving, Sybbie! "You're leaving me and I'll be left with Nanny and you're never coming back!"

Away from the eyes of the world, in the privacy of her bedroom, George's Mamma had more than six years ago wept just as pitifully, just as heartbreakingly, for the sister and confidante who was about to board the ferry to Dublin. More than six years ago, it had seemed she would never return again – not to the world Lady Mary Crawley had persisted in inhabiting –  _You're leaving, Sybil! You're leaving for the life that had always been meant for you and you'll be happy and you'll never come back. The one person who saw good in me! And I'll be left here alone to suffer the consequences of my choices_.  _Oh, my baby sister!_  She remembered then the shared nursery where she had stood tall as her sister's defender and protector – how could she have imagined then that the lives they would lead would lead them to two different worlds – her engaged to a man of wealth and means, a force to be reckoned with as he set her teeth on edge, her sister to marry a former servant, a penniless writer who promised her love, the world and an escape from this life of inutility? Six years later, were her small son's tears a presentiment of the differences in his and his cousin's destinies – he as the earl to a great estate upon the now inevitable fall of the English aristocracy, her as a pioneering woman surgeon in a strong and versatile middle class?

"Of course I'm coming back, Georgie! Mamma and Da promised – "

"No you won't. You would love London because there's no Nanny and because there are no rules and you would never ever go back to Downton!"

"Yes, I would," Sybbie's voice was soft yet insistent, "Of course I would. London won't be much fun without my best friend. Anyway, Mamma and Da are too big to play hide-and-seek with and it's no fun seeing who can eat more gummy worms since they're bigger and always win!"

"It's unfair!" George retorted indignantly, "we're smaller! We can't eat as much!"

"It's absolutely unfair!"

Sybbie smiled, taking her cousin's hand and squeezing it. More than six years ago, Sybbie's own Mamma stood at threshold of Downton Abbey and kissed her mother, grandmother, and sisters goodbye at the dawn of a new life in Ireland. In front of her eldest sister, ever her greatest ally and her great confidant long before Tom Branson had graced the garage of Downton, she lingered, clasping her hand tight and commuting to her in a way no words can ever speak –  _I'm not leaving you, Mary. Even away in Dublin, I won't leave you and I will be there for you. And someday I will come back, not to this life, not to any of it, but I will come back for you. I promise._  Six years later, her small daughter's gesture echoed her own to the most minute detail –  _I'm not leaving you, George. Even away in London. I will come back for you_. _I promise_.

"And when  _you_  come to visit us in London," Sybbie resumed, "I will bring you to the best _est_ , biggest candy shop and we'll see who can finish the most gummy worms."

"And lemon drops!" George added, returning the pressure in his small hand.

"And licorice sticks!"

George's face contorted in disgust, "You know I hate licorice!"

Months later, tears would be shed again, but they would be tears of acceptance and understanding. Now, hands clasped, tears dried, all was right with the world.

"Do you know, Georgie," Sybbie laughed, "Granny made me swear not to tell…"

"What?" his tone was conspiratorial, ready for a round of secrets.

"I saw what present Grandpapa and Granny have for you!"

"Is it the train from America? Is it the sailboat? Do tell, Sybbie! Do tell!"

Sybbie grinned just as conspiratorially and only said, "Oh, look at that dancing purple light! Do you suppose the fairies know we are watching them?"

* * *

The eating so much candy contest was inspired by a fic I've read a while back so credit to that -- I can imagine Sybil playing that game with her daughter tho!


End file.
